LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Helps for Daily Living 



M. J. SAVAGE 



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The true hero is the helper 




BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street 

1889 



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Copyright 

By George H. Ellis 

1889 



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DEDICATED 

TO ALL THOSE WHO, KNOWING THEY CAN HELP BUT LITTLE, ARE 
STILL READY TO HELP ALL THEY CAN. 



CONTENTS 

I. Life's Aim and Meaning 9 

II. Things that make Honesty Hard 23 

III. The Self and Others 39 

IV. The Problem of Evil 53 

V. Life s Petty Worries 65 

VI. The Commonplace 79 

VII. Helping 92 

VIII. Conflicts of Conscience 107 

IX. Living by the Day 121 

X. How to Die 136 



LIFE'S AIM AND MEANING. 



Not a great while ago, I was engaged in conversation 
with a finely-cultured and earnest-hearted gentleman, who 
had been trained in the old religious faith, and who, I think, 
is still a member of the Orthodox Church. I found, how- 
ever, that, in spite of these facts, he was sharing in the dis- 
content, the bewilderment, the questionings, that are touch- 
ing so many hearts and so many minds at the present time. 
He had been suddenly smitten with a great affliction, — one 
that had been great enough and had come near enough to 
his own life to shock his settled belief, and make him ready 
to ask the question, What does life mean ? What is it for, 
he said, what is the outcome of it ? Why are we subjected 
to these tremendous trials ? Are they worth while ? Is 
there any definite aim and meaning in life ? 

So people in all departments of life, in all branches of the 
Church, first or last, come back to raise these old funda- 
mental questions ; and we need, if it may be, to have them 
answered, sufficiently at any rate to give us a working the- 
ory of life. I do not undertake to settle all questions, to 
clear away all difficulties. I do not presume to tell you that 
I can see through the mystery of life and tell you just what 
is to be the outcome. I only tell you, as the result of hard 
study and thinking, that I have come to certain convictions ; 
and these convictions constitute for me a practical working 
theory of life. There are no more objections against them, 



io Helps for Daily Living 

at any rate, than against any other theory of life that I can 
frame. And this theory, or this way of looking at life, has 
the advantage of giving us standing-ground under our feet 
and, at least, hope for the future. 

In attempting, then, to answer this broad question as to 
whether there be any aim and meaning in life, I wish, first, 
to treat of it from the stand-point of the world as a whole, 
as to whether we can see any traces of a divine aim and 
meaning, as to whether we have any right to speak of God 
as having a plan, a purpose, in human life. Then I shall 
come to the more personal question, when I have disposed 
of that. 

First, then, have we any right to think that God has any 
plan, any purpose, in his management of the world ? In old 
times, it was comparatively easy to believe that he had. When 
I was a boy, I was taught that we ought to look — each one 
of us — at our lives as being a distinct and definite plan of 
God ; that he not only had a plan of the universe, — a plan 
of the world, — but that he had a plan concerning each one 
of us ; and that, if we tried to find out what he wanted us to 
do, and tried to do it, we were co-operating with him in 
working out this divine plan. In old times, when we held 
that theory of the world concerning which I spoke last Sun- 
day ;* when we believed that this globe, which was not even 
thought of as a globe then, but only as a flat surface, — when 
we believed that this was the centre of God's universe, the 
most important body in it, and that everything else existed 
merely for the sake of men, that the sun was only to light our 
pathway by and the stars only to shine upon us by night; 
when we believed that God had created this planet only a 
little while ago for a very distinct and definite end, — it was 
easy, then, to think of God as having a plan not only for the 

♦See sermon on " Break-up of the Old Orthodoxy." 



Lifes Aim and Meaning II 

world, but for each person in it. I used to be taught that 
the world was created about five or six thousand years ago ; 
that, as it was created in six days of labor, and this was fol- 
lowed by a Sabbath of rest, so there were to be a thousand 
years of labor corresponding to each of the six days ; that 
the world was to exist six thousand years in the midst of the 
turmoil and struggle of life, in the battle between good and 
evil, and that that was to be followed by a thousand years of 
peace, — the millennium of rest, — and that then this world 
and its affairs were to be wound up, and this system of ours 
was to cease to be. That was the scheme of things that 
was believed for hundreds of years. It was, I repeat, easy 
to believe then in God's plan. We could think of that kind 
of a God. We could think of that kind of a world. It was 
comprehensible. We could grasp it and make it real to us. 

But what has happened ? We have found out that this 
world of ours, instead of being the largest and most impor- 
tant body in the universe, is one of the smallest in our solar 
system ; and this solar system is one of the smallest among 
the systems. We know that there are suns thousands on 
thousands of times larger than ours, that our sun is one of 
the smaller stars to any person who may be inhabiting some 
other solar system away off in space. As Colonel Ingersoll 
expressed it once in his terse though humorous fashion, 
" We are only inhabitants of the rural districts of the uni- 
verse." We have found out that this world is quite a small 
affair, that man, instead of being this special creation for 
this special purpose, that once we thought we knew all 
about, has been developed by natural processes from lower 
forms of life, and has come to be what he is under the work- 
ing of natural law, whatever may be the force, the power, 
back of and controlling that law. 

Now we have waked up to feel ourselves utterly lost in 



12 Helps for Daily Living 

infinity. We have a new problem to discuss, and it must be 
looked at in a new way ; and, if we are any longer to have 
faith in any purpose and plan of God, we must get it in a 
different fashion from that which used to satisfy our fathers. 
They talked of all the manifestations of life on earth as being 
definitely planned and arranged just as they are. The eye 
was made on purpose to match the light, and the ear on 
purpose to match sound ; and wings were created perfectly 
adapted to enable the possessor to fly in the air, and fishes 
were adapted to live in the sea. All the different parts and 
processes of nature were supposed to be planned in just this 
way, just as a carpenter might plan a house. The foremost 
argument for the old-time design — one that has played a 
greater part than any other in theological discussion — is that 
of Dr. Paley. His famous argument or illustration was based 
on the watch. He showed that the watch manifestly had 
a designer, — somebody that planned it. Then he goes on 
to draw the parallel between the mechanism of that watch 
and the mechanism of the forms of life in the world and to 
say that, if one of them had a planner, a designer, so must 
the other have had. And this argument, at that time, was 
considered conclusive. But now that way of looking at the 
question of design has been outgrown ; and, should I to-day 
speak in the presence of any body of careful, scientific, 
philosophical thinkers, and refer seriously to Paley's watch, 
the only answer that would meet me would be a smile. If 
there be design, if there be plan and purpose, it is certainly 
not of that kind. 

For what do we see ? What does the evolutionist say in 
regard to this adaptation ? He would say, of course, that the 
eye is adapted to the light because the year-long and ever- 
lasting play of light upon the nervous system of animated 
forms has created eyes, and it has not created them very well 



Lifes Aim and Meaning 13 

either ; for, instead of the eye being the perfect instrument 
that theologians used to speak of, it is very far from being 
perfect. There probably is not one pair of eyes in a hun- 
dred that are normal, that are anywhere near perfect. They 
tell us now that it is the play of the powers and forces 
around us upon organism that has shaped and adapted or- 
ganism. The Maine pine now grows in the north, not be- 
cause God, foreseeing the climate, created and adapted the 
tree to live in these conditions, but because in the process 
of ages this particular tree developed a hardiness which 
enabled it to live there, and those that were less hardy have 
all died out. This is what they tell us now. So, if I should 
go to some far island in the sea, — a small island, — and 
find there a race of insects without any wings, instead of 
saying that God made these insects without wings and 
adapted them to live upon this little island, the scientific 
men would say that the insects which had wings with which 
they were accustomed to float in the air were swept off by 
the winds into the sea, and so only those which clung close 
to the surface of the soil survived, propagated, and became 
possessors of the island. So animals especially swift or 
strong, or whatever they may be, are the result of these 
long struggles for life. And, if any plant, any flower, any 
animal, any race of men, is found existing in a particular 
set of circumstances, it is because it has progressively 
adapted itself to those circumstances. It has been a suc- 
cessful fighter in the age-long battle for life. 

You see, then, from this how the whole question of plan 
and design has been changed; and this, added to the discov- 
ery of the immensity of the universe and the natural origin 
of man, has made many earnest, hungry-hearted thinkers feel 
that they are all adrift in the infinite world. They know not 
whether there be any plan or purpose of God in human life. 



14 Helps for Daily Living 

But I believe just as much as I ever believed in a divine 
plan and purpose. I believe there is a drift, a trend, a ten- 
dency, through the ages ; that there is, as Tennyson sings it, 

" One far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

Let me hint to you this larger, this more inclusive, line of 
thought, so as to put my mind into your minds, if I may. Go 
back, no matter how many thousands or millions of years, to 
the time when life first appeared on the planet. Take that 
as your point of departure, and then run through in your 
mind the steps of ascent. For here is the striking thing 
about it, that life, beginning far away and at the lowest point, 
has been progressively ascending all the way, climbing from 
the horizontal forms of life represented by the fishes, up 
through reptile, bird, mammal, to man standing upright on 
his feet, with his face questioning the heavens. So much for 
the steps of physical development through the long course of 
ages. At last, man appeared, man differentiated from the 
lower forms of life by finer physical structure not only, but 
chiefly by larger brain and grander power of thought. At 
first, perhaps, he may have been only more cunning, so that 
he was able to outwit those swifter and stronger than he, and 
make himself king of the world. Then this cunning devel- 
oped into the higher forms of intellect, until we have the 
grandest productions of human thought that have enriched 
the world. 

Then came the development of the moral, the affectional 
side of man, a step higher, something mightier than brute 
force, something mightier than intellect. For to-day it is 
unquestionably true that the mightiest forces in this world 
are the moral forces ; and they are growing every year, 
mastering the physical, mastering the intellectual. It is 



Lifes Aim and Meaning 15 

felt in all communities that moral force has come to be 
mightier than armed hosts ; for there is not a single nation 
in the world to-day that dares to wage an undoubtedly unjust 
war. No nation dares to go to war without at least claiming 
that it is right, so that the military leaders of the world with 
their armaments bow themselves before the majesty of the 
moral law. 

Above and beyond that is coming to be recognized the 
spiritual, that which links man with the infinite, makes him 
feel that he is a child of the eternal, makes him hope and 
dream that there is a thought and heart and life to respond 
to his own, the soul of all the worlds. So that there has 
been — this is the only point I wish to impress upon you — 
this progress from the lowest forms of physical life on 
through the different stages of what we call the animal life of 
man, and then from man physical up through the intellectual, 
up through the moral nature, to the soul. And the universe 
has followed this pathway from the very beginning to — what 
shall we call it ? You can trace it as clearly as you can trace 
a star-beam through space. The progress of the world for 
ages, up from men like Hercules, like Samson, to men like 
Galileo, men like Angelo, men like Shakspere, men like 
Buddha, men like Jesus, — does it not look as though some- 
body meant it ? The power that can hold this universe in 
its arms and lead life from the lowest up a stairway like this 
until we see men like Jesus at the summit, talking about our 
Father in heaven, — does it not look as though somebody 
meant it ? Is a pathway like that trodden by accident ? I 
believe that a mighty power, an almighty power, an all-wise 
power, an all-loving power, has carried the world in his arms, 
and that he is leading it to some issue grander than any 
which we are yet able to dream. 

I think, then, we may take it for granted that this first step 



1 6 Helps for Daily Living 

is clear, that God has a purpose in the world, and that this 
purpose is the culture and development of the spiritual life 
of man. It is that towards which everything thus far has 
tended. 

And what beyond ? " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him." 

We are ready now, then, to raise that further question which 
pertains to us individually, as to whether we ourselves can 
have a plan and purpose in life which we can carry out. I 
dealt with the larger theme first, because whether you agree 
with me or not, unless I could become convinced that the 
power who has made things and has led them had some pur- 
pose, and a wise and good one, I should think it a serious 
question whether it was worth while for me to have one. 
But believing that he has, and that it is a purpose of such 
magnificence and grandeur as that of which I have hinted, 
we may raise the question whether you and I can frame for 
ourselves a plan and purpose in life, whether we can believe 
that there is an aim, a meaning, in our lives, that it is worth 
while for us to discern. 

The first thing that strikes us here, as in the other case, is 
the vast difficulty concerning the whole theme. So much of 
3/our life and mine was settled before we were asked to have 
anything to say about it that it looks as though the range 
within which we were able to plan was a very narrow one. I 
was not asked whether I would be born in America or in 
Africa, whether I would be born of white parents or colored, 
whether I would be born in a Christian or a heathen land, 
whether I would be born of intellectual stock or the opposite, 
whether my parents should have had any training so that 
they would care as to the training they gave me, or whether 
they should not. I was not consulted as to the kind of tem- 



Life's Aim and Meaning 17 

perament with which I was endowed, whether one of melan- 
choly and depression, or one of hopeful, upspringing opti- 
mism, courageous and happy. I was not consulted as to 
how I should be trained and taught in my infancy and early 
youth. In regard to the most of us, we waked up to self- 
consciousness to feel that we were at last in some sense free 
to deal with ourselves, after the great main questions of life 
had been settled, without our being consulted concerning 
them at all. 

How many of us even now have the power of realizing our 
ideals ? Conditions hamper us. All sorts of difficulties 
beset us, over which it seems to us we have no control, until 
sometimes we raise the question whether we are free in any 
sense, whether we are not the playthings of a power so 
mighty as to paralyze our own wills; whether, even if we 
think we are free, there be not some cunning power back of 
ourselves that is playing even with the manifestation of what 
we call will, turning us into mere puppets. I say these ques- 
tions perplex us, until, as I talk with this friend or that, I 
find it is in many cases a great practical difficulty with him. 
He says : What is the use for me to try to plan, or to have an 
ideal ? I cannot reach it. I desire to work good and great 
things in this direction or that; but the instrument breaks in 
my hand, or my power fails me, or those who stand nearest 
me, and to whom I have a right to look for sympathy and 
help, oppose those things which I regard as best and highest 
in me, so that I become discouraged and know not whether 
it be worth while to try. 

Yes, friends, I agree with you. The limits within which 
we are free, within which we may accomplish very much, in 
which we may seek for ourselves an aim and a meaning in 
life, are very narrow. And yet something we can do, — some 
little I can do, some little you can do ; and the total of what 



1 8 Helps for Daily Living 

all can do means, in the course of long years, nothing less 
than the transformation of the world. Look back a few 
thousand years and see. The world a jungle ; barbarous 
tribes lost in the desert, the forest, or wandering along the 
coves by the sea or the shallow rivers, simply to gather what 
nature has created to keep them in existence. There are no 
ships on the sea, there is none of that marvellous transforma- 
tion of the habitable globe that makes up the material 
aspect of what we to-day call civilization. Think what this 
crippled, helpless, confined race of ours has wrought in the 
way of making this world a grander, finer place than they 
found it. They have accomplished results so marvellous as 
to make us wonder no longer that some dreamers dare to 
think of themselves as like the Creator who gave them the 
field for these magnificent operations. 

How has man accomplished all these things? You need 
to note that point carefully. Man has never been able to do 
anything alone. He has been the child of God, the mediator 
of God, the co-operator with God, always and everywhere, 
when he has accomplished anything. He has simply found 
out some divine forces, that existed before he came here, be- 
fore he discovered them ; and he has co-operated with them, 
and through them he has wrought out these magnificent 
attainments. All the material civilization of the world 
means just so much discovery of the divine, so much co- 
operation with the divine. Steam, electricity, all these forces, 
— what are they ? Man created none of them. They were 
here, they were operating, they were God waiting for man's 
discovery and co-operation ; and, when he had discovered 
and had learned how to work with God, then he found 
almost anything to be possible. 

So in regard to these grander things, creating not merely a 
change in our physical environment, but creating a change in 



Life's Aim and Meaning 19 

one's self, a change in one's friends, creating a higher civil- 
ization in human hearts and lives. In regard to all this, the 
method is precisely the same. Find out God at work. Obey 
God, co-operate with him. Just as a ship can be sailed on 
the sea, or a train of cars run on the land, or a message sent 
along the telegraph wire by discovering and co-operating 
with the forces of God, so I can create additional strength 
in my arm, I can create new powers of hearing in my ear, I 
can create new powers of seeing with my eyes, I can create 
new lung-cells, so that I can breathe more of God's vivifying 
air. I can change any part of the structure of my body. 
Tie my arm to my side, and it atrophies and withers. Exer- 
cise it, and it grows mighty and strong. So use and food 
for those parts of my physical nature that I wish developed, 
neglect and starvation for those that I wish to have shrink, 
die out. Give me time, and there is practically no limit to 
the changes I can work in my physical structure. 

The same precisely is true in regard to the mind. It is 
true in regard to the moral nature. It is true in regard to 
the spiritual perceptions and powers that are in us and which 
are the most divine part of us. 

This is what you can do. Decide as to what tendencies 
in yourself, what faculties, you consider worthiest. Decide 
along what lines you wish your nature to be developed. De- 
cide what you will regard as the aim, the meaning, of life, 
and then feed those faculties and powers. Exercise them, 
and you shall grow to mastery. Find out those things that 
need to be pruned away, cut off, trampled under foot, and 
neglect them, fail to feed them, and you shall find yourself 
growing in stature, into the ideal which you hold as the one 
after the shape of which you desire to be formed. 

So much we all can do, then, within the limits where we are 
free. We can find God'5 methods, we can find his powers, 



20 Helps for Daily Living 

we can co-operate with him, and so help ourselves to fulfil 
what we believe to be the divine aim and meaning in human 
life. 

And one step more and one in the region of the practical. 
Just what shall we think ought to be the aim and meaning of 
the individual life ? We are apt to be confused in regard to 
what worthy ends and aims are, when we look merely at the 
life that is right about us. Our neighbors and friends fre- 
quently by their course of life set up a standard that we find 
it difficult to get away from. The pressure of public opinion 
about us coerces us sometimes into ways that are contrary to 
our highest thoughts, our noblest convictions. We all desire 
to be well thought of by those who are round us. We find it 
hard to have them censure us ; and sometimes it is almost as 
hard to have our friends censure us when we feel sure that 
we are right as to have them blame us when we are wrong. 
We love to be in harmony with our surroundings. 

In order, then, that we may have a clear conception as to 
what are the worthiest aims of life, as to what is its deepest 
and highest meaning, let us for a moment glance over the 
past, away from the passions and confusions of the present, 
and see who it is, what kind of people they are, whom the 
world has always adjudged to be the ones approximating to 
a realization of the ideal humanity. Who are they? Whom 
do we think of as the great men of the world ? What have 
they done that we call them great and good ? 

There are several grades of them ; and it is easy to assign 
them their places, when once we get clearly in our minds the 
significance of these grades. There are certain men in the 
past who have helped the material development of the world. 
They are discoverers who have sought and found new conti- 
nents, new lands. They have led other people in settling 
these new lands. They have been colonizers and organizers, 



Lifes Aim and Meaning 21 

sometimes conquerors, who have put barbarism under the 
feet of a higher civilization. They have been inventors and 
men who have changed the face of the physical earth. They 
have made it an easier place for people to live in, given them 
mastery over the physical forces of the world, so that the 
conditions of this bodily life of ours have been bettered by 
them. These are the first. They are the lowest grade, be- 
cause those who help men in the lowest things are the ones 
that render them the least valuable service. And yet I would 
not emphasize this too much, because the high and the low 
in us, as we reckon it, are so intimately linked and blended 
that we find it impossible to develop the highest and finest 
in us until we have made the conquest of the lowest. 

Above the first grade I would place the thinkers, the men 
who have developed the intellectual side of their natures and 
who have helped others to develop their intellects, the men 
who have sought for what is scientifically true about the 
earth, about the heavens, the men who have written the 
world's books, its poems, its novels, its dramas, those in 
the intellectual grade. It is not easy to mark them off ; for 
the one class runs into the other. But this class, roughly 
speaking, I make second. 

Above these, highest of all, crowned with halos that speak 
the divinity of their souls, are those who have been distin- 
guished for being good, who have illustrated, represented 
the moral, the spiritual, side of human nature, who have 
made themselves the companions and the inspirers of those 
who desire to live in the spiritual range. These are the 
greatest of all. In the light of this principle, you see why it 
is, how necessary it is, that we place Jesus first of men. 
Why? For the simple reason that Jesus has done more 
than any other man that ever lived to help the spiritual life 
of man. That is why he ranks above all others that the 
world has ever seen. 



22 Helps for Daily Living 

You see now, when we estimate what we ourselves have 
come to regard as greatest and highest, how we find our- 
selves keeping step with God's footsteps up the ages in the 
development of the world and of man. What God has made 
so far the crown and summit of his creation, the spiritual 
nature in man, we — though we forget that fact as we look 
back over the past — recognize as the greatest and best. 
And so, if we wish to find the true aim and meaning of our 
own individual lives, the key to it is here. Find out what 
it is that God has evidently designed and developed, find 
out what the unanimous consent of humanity has crowned 
as the finest and best, and seek to develop that in your- 
selves. Help your fellow-men in the range of physical need, 
help them in the range of the intellectual ; but you help 
that which has become distinctively human the most when 
you help the moral and the spiritual life. And since your 
power to help depends first and foremost upon what you 
are, before you can render this highest and grandest help 
to others, you yourself must be. God says it then, man 
says it, our own heart, our highest and finest thought, say 
it, that the aim and meaning of life is the development of 
the soul. For what? That doth not yet appear. 



THINGS THAT MAKE HONESTY HARD. 



It is said that on a certain occasion the old Greek cynic, 
Diogenes, was found walking through the streets of the city, 
in the daylight, with a lantern in his hand ; and, when asked 
what he was doing, he said he was in search of a man. I 
have sometimes questioned whether some of his neighbors 
might not have found the search quite as difficult as he did 
himself; for those persons who set out pretentiously with 
their personal ideals, in seeking for what they call a man, are 
perhaps quite as likely to be deficient in some important 
direction in their own characters as they think their neigh- 
bors are. But it is necessary for us this morning to have 
our ideal of a man, what we mean by all-round manliness, 
before we are able to estimate the force of those temptations 
that make it hard for us to reach and maintain our ideal. 

I wish, therefore, in the first place, to give you some hints 
as to what I mean by honesty, what I mean by an honest 
man ; and then we shall be ready to estimate the difficulties 
that assail him. 

As time goes by, changes come over the meaning of words, 
and we sometimes narrow down their meaning and make 
them one-sided in their application. So, in the use of this 
word " honesty," we are too apt to think that a man is en- 
titled to this word, this name, who simply refrains from out- 
right cheating in his business, if he keep himself within the 
limits of the law, or if he keep himself, at any rate, within 



24 Helps for Daily Living 

those somewhat stricter limits of respectability, of what his 
neighbors demand of him. We confine it, therefore, gen- 
erally, in our common use of the word, to this matter of busi- 
ness. We say a man is an honest man, if he comes up to our 
ideal of what honesty requires in his business relations. 

I propose this morning to widen the use of the term, and 
make it include complete manhood, no matter whether he 
faces in the direction of business, of politics, of social life, 
or religion. An honest man ought to be like a tower that 
stands four-square, fearlessly facing and defying every wind 
that blows. 

To illustrate our point a little, — not to go into it exhaust- 
ively, but to make it sufficiently comprehensive, — I propose 
to touch for a moment on some of these separate aspects of 
honesty, that you may see what I mean by a man's being 
honest in these different departments of his life. 

First, and most obvious, let us dwell for a moment upon a 
man's business honesty. What is business ? What is busi- 
ness honesty ? What is the end that ought to be sought by 
it, and that is sought by it more or less consciously by nearly 
all those who engage in it? 

Business, of course, depends upon the simple fact that 
man, even in his most primitive condition, wants something 
that he himself does not create. And perhaps he is able to 
create more of something that is particularly in his line than 
he has any use for or cares to keep. So he wishes to ex- 
change something which he owns for something that he 
needs or desires more. As I said, we find this state of 
things in the most primitive condition of the world. One 
man in a savage tribe will have an aptitude for the manu- 
facture of bows and arrows. Another has no faculty at that 
perhaps, but has some special talent in the manufacture of 
moccasins or other article of use or ornament ; and the one 



Things that make Honesty Hard 25 

who can manufacture successfully his bows and arrows 
makes more than he cares for, and exchanges them for moc- 
casins or beads that some one else possesses and that he 
desires. As society develops, the needs, the wants, and the 
desires of men increase, broaden, reach out in every direc- 
tion, until man needs not merely something to eat, something 
to wear, something to shelter him from the weather, a home, 
but he needs something to feed his intellectual life, some- 
thing to feed his moral hunger, something to feed his artis- 
tic taste, his desire for beauty ; and so the productive power 
of the world attempts to keep pace with the desires of man- 
kind. Thus, naturally, as the world increases in complexity, 
there is division of labor ; but in the midst of all the complex- 
ity there is one simple fundamental principle on which all 
honesty hinges. There must be equality in the exchange, so 
that the person who gets as well as the person who gives is 
better off than he was before. Indeed, in an exchange, each 
person both gets and gives. But the point to be remem- 
bered is that this exchange, however complex the process be 
by which it is carried out, should be such that after it is 
over both the parties to it are better off than they were be- 
fore, or at least as well off. If not, then there is dishonesty 
somewhere involved in the process. 

There is a point that I need to call your attention to for a 
passing moment. I have had occasion to remind you sev- 
eral times during the past years of the fact that this civil- 
ized world of ours is only a little way at any time from 
destitution. If there were no production, if nothing were 
added to the stock of the world, the world would wear out 
and eat up all that there is in the course of two or three years, 
and so perish. Here, then, is this stock of general good ; 
and it seems to me a fundamental principle of business hon- 
esty that any man who proposes to take out of this accumu- 



26 Helps for Daily Living 

lated wealth of the world the tiniest particle for his own use 
must see to it that he adds something to the general welfare 
that shall be an equivalent, at least. If he leaves it no richer 
or if he takes what he has no right to, he becomes, no mat- 
ter what his position, what we mean by a thief. That is 
what theft means. Rendering some equivalent, serving the 
world, adding to its legitimate amusement or welfare in 
some way, is the only honest condition for any man, woman, 
or child. Then, when you engage in the world's business, 
see to it that it is honest, that there is equal exchange. 
These are the principles that underlie honesty in business. 
I must not stop one moment for application, for there is no 
time. 

Turn next to consider what it means to be honest politi- 
cally. For what does politics exist ? Government is simply 
the management of public business, public affairs, those 
affairs that are too large, too wide-spread, too complicated to 
be as well done by individual enterprise. What is the one 
thing to be aimed at always ? Always the public good in 
the use of public money, in the use of public time, in the 
use of public position, — always the public good. And he 
who attempts to gain position for the sake of using it for his 
own private advantage, to punish his enemies or to reward 
his friends, is a dishonest politician. He who by means 
direct or indirect attempts to beguile the public mind, to 
turn the attention of the people to a false issue, to hood- 
wink or deceive them as to the welfare of the people, — he 
who does any of these things for the sake of helping himself 
personally or for the triumph of his party is a dishonest poli- 
tician. Any man who interferes in any way with a free, 
intelligent expression of the popular will, in a popular gov- 
ernment, is a dishonest politician. Any man who attempts 
to get laws passed which are unequal in their practical work- 



Things that make Honesty Hard 27 

ing, that help a person, a class, a clique anywhere, to the 
disadvantage of the public, is a dishonest politician. The 
honest politician is he who attempts earnestly to serve his 
time in a position that is honestly and manfully won. And 
the honest politician will stick by that motto which was 
uttered years ago, but that few people really believe in, that 
it is better to be right than to be President, better to be right 
than to be mayor, better to be right than to occupy any po- 
sition of political power. 

What in society ? Who is the man socially honest ? Not 
the man who seeks in any way that is within his power to 
gain a high social position, but he who recognizes that there 
are real distinctions among the people of the world, and who 
fixes his attention on that which he regards as really above 
him in the manly line of ascent, and attempts to reach this 
higher place, because to be there is to be more of a man and 
to be able to render society a nobler service. An aristocracy 
may or may not be noble ; but certainly the man who hap- 
pens to be born of certain ancestors, but who himself is 
neither intelligent nor true, nor fine in his feeling, nor clean 
in his character, is not a nobleman, however he may be born. 
I stop not to quarrel with society organized on the basis 
of money. If there be certain people who think that the 
only other people worth associating with are those who pos- 
sess somewhere near the amount of money which they pos- 
sess themselves, I have no quarrel with them : only I say to 
them that I cannot share their ideal, and that what they call 
high I call poor and not worth the search. 

So, if a person seeks literary distinction, or power in that 
direction, merely for the sake of himself, he is not any higher, 
grander, nobler than he who seeks selfish power for selfish 
ends in any other direction. The same principles precisely 
must be applied. 



28 Helps for Daily Living 

Who is the honest man religiously ? The honest man 
religiously is the one who faces the facts of the world, who 
does not shrink from the truth because facing it hurts, be- 
cause facing it entails upon him present and personal loss, — 
loss of prestige, loss of position, of power ; the man who dares 
to open his eyes and sees things as they are and then stand 
manfully, believing in the integrity of the universe to such an 
extent that he cannot consent to be anything less than hon- 
est ; the man who will not swear to a creed that he does not 
believe, who will not stand in a false position in the pulpit, 
who will not sit in a false position in the pew, who will not 
cast his influence in favor of anything which he believes will 
be for the injury and not for the help of the world ; the man 
who dares to stand by what he believes to be the real truth of 
things, — such is the honest man religiously. 

These but as hints,— hints few and fragmentary, but per- 
haps sufficient to indicate to you my ideal of the honest man : 
honest wherever you put him, honest alone as well as in a 
crowd, honest whether he gains by it or loses by it, honest 
because he believes the universe is honest, and because he 
believes that this is the only way by which he can be a man. 

Now, do not think for one moment that I stand here 
claiming to occupy a position of exceptional honesty myself, 
looking down upon and lecturing the world. Do not think 
for one moment that I underestimate the tremendous forces 
that are at work all round us to hinder our maintaining such 
an ideal as that I have hinted at. I would not have you 
think that I am above or beyond being touched by these 
motives. If I were, I should have had none of that struggle 
or effort that I have made in the past, and am making to-day, 
to at least keep in sight of the ideal that I have attempted to 
outline. I share with you and with the race all the hopes, the 
fears, the passions, the desires and feelings, and the stress of 



Things that make Honesty Hard 29 

those temptations that I propose to indicate, as much as other 
men. Let us, then, see what some of these temptations are. 
I shall class them under three heads, and point out some con- 
crete illustrations under each. 

1. In the first place, one thing that frequently makes 
honesty very hard, in whatever direction the temptations 
come to us, is the fact observed as we look over the world, 
that immediate success seems to be most readily gained by 
not being very particular as to the means. The manner of 
gaining immediate success and the motives the world is not 
very particular about, so that a man succeeds. We have a say- 
ing that " nothing succeeds like success." When a man is 
rich, you know as well as I that people, when they are in- 
vited to enter his parlors, do not look very narrowly into the 
way by which he attained his wealth. If he has succeeded 
politically, and has power, and you are either afraid of him 
or want him to help you, you do not stop very carefully to 
estimate the means by which he won the requisite number 
of votes. If he occupies a high social position, people are 
apt not to look too carefully into his personal character. If 
a person occupies a high position in the church, the people 
who sit in the pews, as well as those who attend the neigh- 
boring churches, are not very scrupulous to hold him closely 
and carefully to the letter of the bond by which, were he 
completely held, he would be bound to modify his position 
or to leave it. People overlook the means by which a per- 
son comes into a position, after he is there ; and so a man 
says to himself, If I can only do so and so, if I can only win 
this thing, the main thing is gained. It is a perfectly nat- 
ural feeling that people should be governed by the desire of 
gaining what they think of as welfare and happiness. In- 
deed, I do not know of any other thing that a man can vol- 
untarily choose. It is our ideal of welfare and happiness 



30 Helps for Daily Living 

which we are all of us seeking as the one highest thing to 
be attained. Of course, most people, before they have tried 
it, are apt to think that happiness lies in social success, or 
political success, or religious success, or financial success. 
And is it not true that, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, 
nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, people are 
spurred on with the thought that to win a position in the front 
rank of the work that they are engaged in is not only a laud- 
able ambition, but the way for them to be happy? And, if 
they win it at the sacrifice of conscience, even then they say 
there are men who have done the same thing and who ap- 
pear to be happy. So they are apt to be led away by this 
which appears to be the readiest means of success. 

One illustration of the kind of philosophy involved in 
reasoning of this sort is in Browning's poem called " Bishop 
Blougram's Apology." Of course it applies to the Church; 
but it will apply equally to anything else. Two young men 
had been classmates, and had been separated for years. 
One had become a bishop; and the other had wandered 
round, meeting with very little success, with no position, 
having acquired no wealth, nor power, nor fame. Years 
passed, and they met again. The bishop invited his old 
chum to dine with him; and over the wine, after dinner, he 
lays out his philosophy of life. Half wise, half cynical, half 
sneering, he points out the fact that he has won success in 
this life, — fame, money, power, honor, distinction. I stand 
here, he says, on the pinnacle ; but you, poor fellow, when 
you came to the point where the path turned, you foolishly 
allowed your conscience to interfere, and so, instead of 
taking the left-hand way to success, you took the right-hand 
way to nothing in particular. And, he argues, I have won 
this success, I hold it here in my hand ; and the bird in the 
hand is worth two in the bush. But the bishop reveals the 



Things that make Honesty Hard 31 

fact that at the bottom of his soul he is an utter sceptic : he 
does not believe in the creed nor in the God he worships, 
nor the heaven that he has attempted to get other people 
to enter. He does not feel quite sure of anything except 
that he is a bishop ; but, as long as he has won the highest 
success, he is willing "to chance it," as we say, concerning 
the rest. How many thousands of people there are who 
have gone upon this philosophy, and who have allowed their 
honesty to break down under the stress of this tremendous 
bribe of success that is close at hand and can be most easily 
grasped ! 

On the other hand, take a character like Jesus. Oh, how 
grand he seems to me when I think of him in the light of 
these worldly principles of immediate prosperity! How 
plausibly might he have argued : What am I really doing ? 
I cannot lead these people, unless I bend and give way! 
Do you remember a certain occasion when he spoke out 
clearly his truth, that it is recorded that from that day many 
who had followed him went back, and walked with him no 
more ? Jesus might very rationally have argued : I have 
lost my hold on these people by being too strict and severe. 
Is it not the wiser policy, the more religious policy, for me 
at least to keep my hold of them, not to speak too clearly ? 
If I can keep my hold on my people, I can gradually mould 
and change them. Did Jesus argue in that way ? It seems 
to me that a person looking at it at that time, not estimating 
the work since, might very rationally have argued that he 
was taking the most unwise course in the world ; that, when 
the time came at the last, instead of' having changed the 
religion of his nation, he was deserted even by some of the 
twelve, his own immediate followers, who had been with him 
from the first. He stood alone, lifted between heaven and 
earth, malefactors on either side, his work an utter wreck 
about his feet. 



32 Helps for Daily Living 

But what since ? Simply because he was honest, because 
he stood by his integrity and uttered his truth, he has almost 
fulfilled that word which was spoken by him, or, at least, 
was put into his lips, whether he uttered it or not, — " And I, 
if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Think of 
the thousands that to-day are ready to honor him and his 
truth, who would have looked upon him simply as, what he 
would have been, a dishonest man, if he had given way one 
inch or surrendered one iota of his truth for the sake of 
immediate success. But I must pass, for lack of time, to my 
next point. 

2. This is one of the mightiest of the forces that stand in 
the way of people's being honest, the fact that the man who 
will be upright, downright, can count on so little sympathy 
on the part of his fellow-men. This is reasonable, looked 
at in one way. The popular standard has the majority in its 
favor ; and generally, I am willing to admit, it is true that, 
when a man differs from all the rest of the world, the chances 
are that he is wrong and they are right. But the simple fact 
that the world learns something gradually, and grows to 
better and better, is demonstration of the fact that now and 
then he is the one who is right, and all the rest are wrong. 
Were that not true, there never would have been any progress 
or growth. But generally it is true, and the man has to face 
that. Think how hard it is that he must not only face the 
fact that his own fellow-men do not sympathize with him, 
that even his friends perhaps think he is a little daft and 
wild, but that perhaps he must also face the underlying 
doubt whether he is right himself. How often there comes a 
case like this : a man in business, for example, starts out to 
be an honest man, and he comes to the point where he 
might succeed in gaining a large amount of money by giving 
way a little. He knows that the price of not doing it is to 



Things that make Honesty Hard 33 

forfeit his success. Perhaps his own wife thinks he is strain- 
ing the point a little. Perhaps he hears her wish that she 
had this or that, saying, Here is one of my schoolmates now 
living on the Avenue in a fine house : you have never got on 
as her husband has, — hinting that perhaps it is because he 
is incompetent. Think of the temptation that comes to a 
man when he must face the fact that his own wife, his own 
friends, his own little band of sympathizers, as he hoped they 
would be, have turned on him with the imputation that he is 
either a little too strict or not quite as smart as his fellows, 
or he might have succeeded as well as they. And perhaps 
he knows at the same time that his ability is not less, but 
that only his conscience stands in his way. 

Let me give you one or two illustrations. I take them 
from literature; but they are no less true than if I had 
taken them from life. You remember George Eliot's story 
of "Felix Holt, the Radical." You remember that his father 
had been the proprietor of a patent medicine which young 
Felix, when he came to investigate the matter, could not 
honestly believe in the virtues of ; and so the question came 
up whether he would take the fortune involved in making it 
or go out into the world poor. And the question was com- 
plicated by the fact that he must seem to antagonize the 
honesty of his own father, and must, in conversation with his 
mother, as he is represented, put himself in the position of 
telling her that her own husband was either not quite clear- 
headed or else not quite true. Think of the temptation in- 
volved in a position like that. 

Take the next illustration, in another of Browning's poems, 
"Andrea del Sarto," where the great painter knew that he 
had ability to stand with the highest, and yet fell from 
among the stars through the importunities, the vanities, the 
passions of the wife whom he passionately loved, but who 



34 Helps for Daily Living 

could not take his measure, who valued his art simply for 
what it could do towards the gratification of her own desires. 
Case after case like this must men face. Think how hard 
it is for a man to be true, for a man to be faithful, in the 
midst of temptations like these. 

I think that the hardest thing, perhaps, in all the world 
is for a man to be true in his religious convictions when 
besieged by temptations like these. Picture Sir Thomas 
More in prison, when a word would set him free. His wife 
comes with her little children, and gets on her knees, and 
clings about his feet, and pleads with him with tears to speak 
that word, which is only a lie, and he is free, with wife and 
children in his arms once more. Is it easy ? It was only 
a question of religious creed, after all. And perhaps Sir 
Thomas More was not right. Perhaps the majority of his 
time could have showed better authority than he. 

Take a more recent, fresher case from literature. You 
will notice that I have not followed the fashion of preaching 
a sermon on " Robert Elsmere," but I shall not let that 
stand in my way of using illustrations from it. Those of 
you who have read it will remember the strain, the deadly 
battle for the truth, that went on with Robert in view of the 
fact that his wife Catherine not only could not comprehend 
and could not sympathize with him, but felt that he was 
being untrue to everything sacred and holy in all the world. 
What does it mean for a man to stand up for a conviction 
against all his friends and against the pleading and tears 
of those nearest him ? These are some of the things that 
make honesty hard. 

As I look back over the past and study my own life, I 
appreciate what this battle means to such an extent that 
I find it very hard to fling epithets at people and call hard 
names, or to be anything but tenderly sympathetic. And 



Things that make Honesty Hard 35 

yet, by virtue of the stress of that fight, I feel authorized 
to say to those who are in the midst of a similar battle 
that they have no right, for personal peace or even to satisfy 
the wishes of their friends, to be untrue to the noblest ideal 
of integrity which they can dream. 

There is one other group of facts that I must speak of, to 
cover the theme as it lies in my own mind. 

3. The third thing that makes honesty hard in so many 
departments of life is the fact that one becomes entangled 
in a set of conditions and circumstances before waking up 
to the fact that any dishonesty is involved ; and, when they 
do wake up, they find themselves tied hand and foot. They 
find themselves committed, in this way and committed in 
that way, so that they seriously question whether they will 
do more good or more harm by following a conviction. It 
is so easy for us, with our sober second-thought, as we call 
it, to persuade ourselves that the easier path is the right one. 

To illustrate what I mean, let me refer to a gentleman I 
have in mind. It is not a case from literature, but from 
life. A gentleman who has had a wide reputation through- 
out the Union told a friend of mine something like this: 
I joined such and such a church when I was a young man, 
when I believed, or thought I believed, its creed. My chil- 
dren have been born and baptized in that church. They 
have grown up in it, all their associations are there, all their 
friends are there. My wife is there, still satisfied, still a 
believer. Her entire circle of friends is there. I, however, 
as I have travelled, read, and studied, have ceased com- 
pletely to believe that which once satisfied me. And here 
I am. I am a vestryman in my church, I have held official 
position, I have accepted its honors ; yet I no longer believe. 
What shall I do ? How shall I free myself from this 
entanglement ? how escape honorably ? May I not do more 
harm than good by leaving it ? 



36 Helps for Daily Living 

Take another illustration. I was talking with one of the 
most cultured gentlemen in one of our great cities within a 
week; and he told me of a conversation that he had recently 
with the most popular clergyman in a great city, a man who 
has the largest following in the city, an immensely rich, 
strong church, who said : " I have found that I do not believe 
more than one-third of the creed of the church in which I 
am preaching. But what am I to do ? Here I am, the 
pastor, possessed of tremendous power. My congregation 
is rich. I can get ten thousand dollars any Sunday, by 
asking for it, to help this cause or that. While I am here, 
I can mould the thought of my people. I can educate them, 
I can help them to higher and better ways of thinking. If I 
leave them, I throw away this power. It all goes into other 
hands, some one who will not preach half as sensibly as I 
do, perhaps. There will be reaction. May it not be worse 
for my people for me to leave than for me to stay where I 
am ? " You see the line of argument. You see how easy it 
is for any one to persuade himself that the position he occu- 
pies, though it be not quite upright, not quite clear in its 
integrity, is still practically the best. There may be cases 
where this course is the best. I do not feel called upon to 
pronounce any hasty judgment. I only do feel this: that, if 
all the men in this country to-day who occupy similar posi- 
tions would speak out at once and step out at once, the world 
would leap ahead a century in five years. And, so long as 
I hold that conviction, I must speak out and step out, though 
I do it alone. I will fling no hard words at those behind 
me. I will only utter my conviction and stand as I may 
for what seems to me the truth, true honesty, in the relig- 
ious life. 

But it is not simply a religious temptation. This same 
principle comes to the man in political life and to the man 



Things that make Honesty Hard 37 

in business life. A man who occupies a position in the 
political world may persuade himself that he can do great 
good by keeping it, though he finds himself pressed into 
doing things, or consenting to the doing of things, that he 
does not really believe in. 

So a man in business may find himself in a position like 
this. Suppose one goes into a banking house or a mer- 
chant's store, as a boy, and grows up in the business, and 
wakes up at last to the conviction that the methods by which 
that business is carried on are not strictly honest methods. 
But he is involved in it. His own business career is in- 
volved. He has his future to look out for, and perhaps a 
mother or friends dependent on him. What shall he do? It 
is not so easy as we sometimes think to be an honest man. 

Now, at the last, one consideration, and one only. What 
can make a man strong enough to face all these temptations 
and go through all these fires and come out unscathed ? He 
must have a deep-down faith in the integrity, in the reality, 
the meaning of things. He must believe that this is no hap- 
hazard scheme of which he is a part. He must believe that 
there is wisdom and righteousness and truth and love at the 
heart of things, with which he can ally himself. He must 
believe that there is a power controlling these affairs that is 
on his side, when he is on the side of right, and that in the 
long run it will be worth his while to stand, to be patient, to 
wait. If a man really believes this, then, though he sacrifices, 
he does not sacrifice the best, — though he loses, he does not 
lose the essential ; for such a man is convinced that the one 
grand end and aim of life is the creation of completed hu- 
manity, a manhood that lasts when business is forgotten, a 
manhood that endures when our present social order is a 
thing of the past, a manhood that remains when political 
struggles are no more remembered, a manhood that is a part 



38 Helps for Daily Living 

of the religious life of the world, a part of the permanence 
of things, something that he keeps and carries over with 
him j something that all the world can minister to, but that 
he would be a fool to exchange for any or all. The only- 
safety, it seems to me, for a man in this world is to carry in 
his right hand and in his soul that divine conviction. With 
that as a light, let him look over the past, and he will see that 
by common consent the grand souls of the world have been 
those who were fools enough to fling away their lives that 
they might save them. They are the ones who were right ; 
they are the ones who are remembered. And, if we can 
believe that these, though invisible, are not far away, if 
we can realize that picture which the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews so grandly wrought out, — that picture of one 
in the arena equipped for running a race, with a great cloud 
of witnesses rising tier on tier in the amphitheatre all about 
him, remembering that the one thing which was important 
for him to do was to win that race, the race for his own man- 
hood, then he can hear and respond to the challenge, 
"Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great 
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, . . . and 
run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto 
Jesus, — [and to all the great and the noble of the past], — 
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who 
for the joy that was set before him — [the joy of allegiance 
to the truth and victory with it] — endured the cross, de- 
spising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of 
God." 



THE SELF AND OTHERS. 



Practical life is an unsteady and constantly changing 
balance between the claims of the self and the claims of 
other people. And these conflicting claims present to us 
constantly varying practical problems as to which way duty 
lies. What rights have I as an individual ? How much 
have I a right to enjoy? How much have I a right to 
study? What right have I to my own individual opinions? 
What right have I to accumulate and use money as I please? 
In short, what is the nature and what are the limits of my 
right to live out to its full extent my own individual life ? 

And here is the counter question : What rights have other 
people concerning my personal life ? How much right have 
they to my time ? How much right have they to demand 
that I shall sacrifice a certain quantity of my own personal 
enjoyment or my accumulated intelligence ? What right 
have they to my own personal services, to my money ? You 
see that practical questions of this kind are perpetually fac- 
ing us, — questions of practical casuistry, each one of them 
having some peculiarity that sets it off apart by itself, and 
makes it a new problem to solve. 

The tendency always is to one or the other extreme. 
There is this perpetual pulling, so to speak, between what 
philosophy calls the ego — the egoistic theory of life — and 
the altruistic theory of life. These forces seem to me to 
resemble in some particulars what we call the centripetal and 



40 Helps for Daily Living 

the centrifugal forces in astronomy. If the centripetal 
forces were so mighty as to pull all the planets and moons 
into the sun, the solar system would cease to be. If the 
centrifugal forces, on the other hand, were so mighty as to 
send each planet off by itself, in this case, also, the solar 
system would cease to be. No matter how brilliant any sun 
might be, no matter how brilliant any planet or moon, it 
would be as though all were darkness; for they would be 
so far apart that they would come into no relation to each 
other. There would be none to give and none to receive 
illumination. 

Not only do we find this a practical problem for us to 
settle in our daily lives, but these two tendencies have mani- 
fested themselves in the world's religions, philosophies, and 
governments. There are, for example, certain theories of 
the religious life which make it the one great end and aim 
of each individual to save his personal soul. This first, 
this always. This is his prime duty to God, his prime duty 
to himself. 

On the other hand, there are certain theories of religion, 
like some phases of the Hindu teaching, where the individual 
soul is considered as practically of no account. It is the all 
that fills the contemplative mind. The individual is only 
a tiny wavelet on the vast sea, that lifts itself into promi- 
nence, glints for a moment in the sunshine, and then sinks, 
never to possess the same individual life again. 

Then, in philosophy, we find the same two divergent, 
antagonistic expressions. There are certain philosophers 
who say that the only thing that any man knows is that he 
exists and has certain sensations. On this theory, I am the 
universe, so far as I am concerned. I am the centre of all 
things ; and all that I know is that I am, and that I feel. 

Then there is a certain pantheistic philosophy, which cor- 



The Self and Others 41 

responds to the pantheistic religion of which I have spoken 
to you, that counts the great souls of the world as practically 
of no account. This philosophy teaches that the course of 
the world's history would practically have been the same if 
the greatest men of the world had never lived. It makes 
them not creators of epochs, but only expressions of ten- 
dencies, so that the individual is swallowed up in the mass. 

Then we have these two opposite theories in government. 
You are familiar with the terms "• anarchy " and " social- 
ism," and possibly, without thinking very deeply, you may 
confound the two at times ; but yet they are the two repre- 
sentatives of extreme opposites. The anarchist theory is 
individualism run mad, — the right of every man, woman, 
and child to live out his own life. It would be the abolition 
of all government, the abolition of all contract, the abolition 
of the family as well as of the State. Extreme individualism 
would be the result. On the other hand, the theory of 
socialism makes the individual count for practically nothing. 
He has no rights which he is not bound at once to surrender 
to what is called the general welfare. He has no right to 
hold property individually, or even to choose his profession 
or trade. He has no right to go his own way in any direc- 
tion. He is only a unit, — a part of the larger whole, — to 
be dominated and controlled by the central power which 
gives direction to this whole. 

So you see that these conflicting claims of egoism on the 
one hand and of altruism on the other dominate the world, 
and in every department of thought and life are perpetually 
bringing us face to face with problems practical and theo- 
retical for us to solve. 

My purpose this morning is not an ambitious one. I am 
not to discuss philosophy or science or sociology with you. 
I speak of these at the outset only to show you how univer- 



42 Helps for Daily Living 

sal the problem is. What I have in mind is to talk famil- 
iarly with you for a little while concerning some of the per- 
sonal aspects of this question as they present themselves to 
us for daily settlement. I want to help you to appreciate 
that the individual has rights and that society has rights, 
which are not necessarily in conflict, though they appear to 
be. I want to put in your hands, if I can, some principle 
that shall enable you to solve some of these problems as 
they present themselves to you ; for it is my conviction that 
it is quite as possible for one to overestimate the duty of 
self-sacrifice as it is to underestimate it. And, while we are 
accustomed to say that the whole world is selfish, and that 
every man and every woman in it is dominated merely by 
selfishness, — I have heard it over and over again, — I believe 
that there are thousands and thousands who carry the matter 
of self-sacrifice to an extreme, whose sensitive consciences ride 
them till they drive them into that which is positively wrong, 
not only to themselves, but to others, — in the thought that 
the highest thing they can do is to repress and wipe them- 
selves out. My plan, therefore, will include the bringing up 
of a good many typical cases, — an attempt to sketch in 
rough outline, but clear enough for our purpose, certain 
illustrations of the way these conflicting claims work in 
practical life. 

It does not take us long to find the weak point in a char- 
acter like that of the Pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid, a 
man who attempted apparently to sum up in his own individ- 
ual life the entire life of his age. He was a man who carried 
to extreme this principle of egoism, reaching out and absorb- 
ing into himself the life of a kingdom merely for the building 
of a monument for his own personal glory, sacrificing the 
personal rights, claims, conscience, enjoyment, even the lives 
of probably hundreds of thousands of his subjects. A man 



The Self and Others 43 

who makes the most of himself along those lines and in that 
way, it needs no argument to show, comes short in the most 
serious way of making the most of himself. He masses that 
which is central in his own personality, and through the very 
excess of his selfishness sacrifices not only the lives of hun- 
dreds of thousands of his subjects, but sacrifices the highest 
life of his own soul, developing himself not into something 
highly human and grand, but into a monster. 

Precisely the same danger threatens men in the modern 
world. I have in mind one of the most famous merchants 
of modern times, a man who lived, so far as the changed 
conditions of the world permit, a life substantially like that 
of the Pharaoh to whom I have referred; a man who 
crushed out all opposition ; a man who hindered all rivalries 
so far as he could ; a man who stood in the way of the devel- 
opment of all others whose work would in any way tend to 
compete with his own; a man who absorbed the whole life 
of his time in that direction, so far as he was able to do so, 
making himself a sponge, sucking up and taking into himself 
everything with which he came in contact and giving out 
nothing, giving only as a sponge when he was the victim of 
some outside pressure beyond his own control. It needs no 
words to make apparent the mistake of men like this. Not 
only do they not serve to the best their fellow-men, not only 
do they not recognize the rights and the welfare of others, 
but they do not in any true and high sense make the lives 
that they destroy minister to them that which is good for 
themselves. 

Now let us take a case a good way off from either of these, 
a case the like of which we have known more than once in 
life, where, under what I regard as a mistaken sense of duty, 
some one spends her life — for it is generally a woman — in 
being absorbed so completely in what are considered holy 



44 Helps for Daily Living 

parental claims that she ceases to have power to develop her 
own individuality or to be a noble, rounded out, complete 
woman, or to live the noble free life that rightly belongs to 
her. I have in mind the case of a daughter whose father and 
mother are growing old. The brothers, if there have been 
any, have grown up and gone away. Parents rarely think 
of absorbing in this sense the life of a son, or, if they do, 
the son generally rebels and refuses to submit. But many 
and many a time does it come to pass that the daughter, 
claimed by the fond and over-fond but the not over-wise love 
of father and mother, feels that she has no right to live out 
her own life or to be anything on her own account. She 
is needed at home ; father wants her, mother wants her, 
and she gives up her life completely to them. The time 
comes perhaps when the perfect flower of her womanhood 
might blossom under the sunshine of a perfect love, and 
she might link herself to another life and go on in her own 
way developing all the fine qualities of her womanhood and 
her motherhood. But under this sense of duty, this over- 
mastering claim of father and mother, she represses this 
love, crowds down that which is most characteristic and 
most noble in any woman, puts some tender keepsake away 
in a drawer, perhaps lessens the power of another life that 
had the grand claim of a grand love on her by a refusal, 
and sacrifices all this to this mistaken — is it? — sense of 
duty to father and mother. I do not say it is always mis- 
taken ; but I do say that time and time again this is pure, 
unmitigated, needless selfishness on the part of father and 
mother, and that they have no right, because this woman 
perchance is their child, to absorb into themselves all that 
is noble and grand in her, and make her life an abortion 
and a failure. 

Here is one of the great questions. I cannot answer it 






The Self and Others 45 

authoritatively in every case, but in many a one it is only a 
very sensitive conscience on the part of the daughter and 
overweening selfishness on the part of father and mother. 
Because I have chosen to bring a soul into this world, I have 
no right to do anything with that soul except to make that 
life, if possible, a grand success for that life itself. 

Sometimes it is the opposite. Sometimes the father and 
mother bow to the child, son or daughter, to such an extent 
that the whims and fancies, the desires and passions, of the 
child rule ; and the life of father and mother becomes ab- 
sorbed in the selfishness of the child. Here, again, it is a 
question between the self and the claims of other people as 
to which shall rule, as to where the limit shall be set up, as 
to which way the balance shall incline. 

There are other cases. Sometimes it is an invalid in the 
home. Some one is ill, perhaps for months and years ; and 
in the sick fancy of this illness the invalid persuades herself 
that there is only one person in all the world that she can 
bear to have about her. And so this one person is only a 
satellite revolving day and night, month after month, year 
after year, round this one invalid life. Here, again, it is a 
question, and a serious question, as to whether it be not the 
duty of this attendant to break away. What right has one, 
merely because ill, to suck the life, the heart, the brain, the 
soul, out of another life, making two ill where there need 
have been but one, when the services are such as might be 
rendered by another? 

Then it seems a serious question whether this loving at- 
tendance, so overdone, may not be an evil to the invalid her- 
self. Go out into the wide world, touch the outside life, 
bring in something of the fresh sunshine and the air ; and 
not only do you help yourself, but you help the sick one bet- 
ter than though you devoted yourself exclusively to this at- 
tendance and care. 



46 Helps for Daily Living 

To turn away from cases like this, let us consider our 
public men. To a man who is in such a position that every 
one feels he has a right to come to him for service of this 
kind or that, the question becomes very practical. His prob- 
lem is : Shall I reserve to myself some sacred hours ? Shall 
I reserve to myself the right to study, the right to think? 
Shall I reserve for myself some time in my own home ? Shall 
I claim, as other people do, the right to have a few intimate 
personal friends, a little circle nearer to me than the rest of 
the world, or shall I become a public pasture, where every- 
one has a right to feed ? Shall I become a common, trod- 
den by everybody's feet, and claim nothing for myself? I 
am not speaking of myself now, mark you. I am only refer- 
ring to typical cases, true of thousands. 

Again, take the case of the man who has made himself 
wealthy, who has been successful in business, — what shall 
he do ? Here are the claims of the poor, of the sick, of a 
thousand charities, — claims in the way of public education, 
claims in every direction. How much shall such a man 
spend on himself ? How large and fine a house, what fur- 
nishings, shall he allow himself? How much for his family? 
How much in the way of music ? How large a share of his 
own estate shall he keep to give to his children ? Where is 
the line to be drawn between the claims of the world and 
his own claims to that which he calls his own ? It is not an 
easy matter to decide. 

I want to turn now to another class of cases. I know I 
am going to tread on dangerous ground. I am going to say 
some things that can be very easily misunderstood. I am 
going to preach what a great many would call dangerous 
doctrine. But, if fools listen and fools interpret, I do not 
know of any doctrine, even the multiplication table, that may 
not become dangerous. This world is full of danger. You 



The Self and Others 47 

are not free from danger any minute of your lives. The only 
way that you can escape danger is to go out of the world. I 
am going to speak about the relation between husband and 
wife, as to what constitutes true marriage, and as to what 
are the rights and the claims of husband and wife on each 
other. 

Suppose a wife has high and grand ideals, and that she 
marries a man who lacks them. You remember that Tenny- 
son says in such a case, in " Locksley Hall," — 

"As the husband is, the wife is : thou art mated with a clown, 
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down." 

Will it ? Must it ? Should it ? Suppose the husband is 
an exacting and selfish man, who claims that he cannot be 
happy except as the life of his wife becomes absorbed in his 
own and in his own way of living. There are such cases. 
Is it her duty, for the sake of making him contented with 
his selfish life, to sacrifice all the higher and grander things 
in herself? I do not believe it is. I believe that that whole 
theory of marriage is barbarous from beginning to end. 

How did the husband in old times acquire a wife ? Fre- 
quently, he did it with a club as the result of pursuit. Later, 
he did it by purchase ; and he does it sometimes that way 
now. But, when he had gained his wife, he felt, and the great 
majority of men feel still, that the wife is his property. 
They are not very willing to turn it round, and let the woman 
say that the husband is her property, though that claim is 
made as exactingly sometimes on the one side as the other. 
I believe that there will never be true marriage, and that 
the question, " Is marriage a failure ? " will never be settled, 
till men and women become civilized enough to recognize 
the rights of the personality of both husband and wife; and 
that neither the man nor the woman has any right, because 



48 Helps for Daily Living 

they are married, to invade the sacredness of that personal- 
ity, any more than, because New York and Massachusetts 
are united as a part of this great Union, the militia of one 
has the right to invade the soil of the other without per- 
mission. I believe that any true marriage means a perfect, 
self-centred, roundly developed womanhood and a perfect, 
self-centred, roundly developed manhood, and then cordial, 
willing, voluntary co-operation. Anything short of that is 
degradation. 

I believe, then, that both the man and the woman should 
be free, free as the air, to live out his and her individual, 
intellectual, spiritual life, and to hold his own or her own 
way. If I had a wife that I had to tie either by a cord or by 
fear, or by persistent pestering when I was out of her sight, 
I would — certainly not hold her by force, either physical or 
spiritual. If husbands and wives cannot hold each other 
by mutual loving respect and mutual tenderness, then mar- 
riage most certainly in their cases is a failure. 

But suppose, — and here I tread more dangerous ground 
still-, — suppose either the husband or wife find that they have 
tastes that lead them in different directions, and that bring 
them into association, even intimate association, with other 
people, men or women to whom they are not married, and 
are not likely to be, — what then ? I do not believe that any 
man or any woman has a right to starve a certain faculty or 
quality of mind of wife or husband for the simple reason that 
they have no taste in that direction. Why, if the husband 
and wife were mere echoes, duplicates of each other, what a 
monotonous life it would be ! By as much as the wife differs 
from her husband, by as much as the husband differs from 
the wife, by as much as each is developed on some side of 
the nature that the other is not, perhaps hardly understands, 
by so much does the common life become larger, richer, 



The Self and Others 49 

finer, higher, because of this variety. True marriage ought 
to be like twin stars in the heavens. You would not, if you 
could, have one fall into and become absorbed in the other. 
Let the two swing and shine together in their one sphere, 
each with its own peculiar brilliance ; and then the heavens 
become glorious. 

These are illustrations of what we find in every direction 
all over the world, practical questions. The question came 
up, and it is fresh in your minds this morning, in the case of 
Robert Elsmere and his wife. I have heard a good many 
women say, — and I do not agree with them, — that they 
think Catherine was all wrong, and that, for the sake of 
peace and helping her husband, — "and, if she had loved 
him, she would have done it," — she should have surren- 
dered her sacred convictions, and have become simply an 
instrument for him to play on. I do not believe it. Cath- 
erine is not a woman I should have cared to marry ; but she 
is a grand woman. She was true and noble, and she lived 
her own life ; and, if there were a Robert Elsmere who had 
passed over into the other life and could look back upon a 
Catherine here, he would have loved her all the more truly 
because she was woman enough to be her own self. 

Take one more case in this direction, — a case like that of 
John Stuart Mill. Mill came into such personal relations 
with the life of another woman as made him believe that he 
had never lived until he met her. Those relations were 
every way noble. Nobody in all the world ever dared ques- 
tion the nobility of them ; and he felt, as he got towards the 
end of his life, that all the best that he had ever done he 
owed to Mrs. Taylor. Suppose there had been narrow, 
petty jealousy, so as to have starved the life of this great 
man, who found here a well-spring and source of inspiration. 
Friends, we shall be civilized by and by ; and then we shall 



5<d Helps for Daily Living 

look back to this theory of ours, according to which we claim 
to selfishly absorb into our own lives the individuality of 
another, and shall know it for what it is, — barbarism. 

I must not stop for more illustrations. I have purposely 
spent the bulk of my time upon them, however, because they 
are the problems that meet us. It only needs a little time 
now for me to lead you to the consideration of the principle 
that seems to me to hold in itself the practical solution for 
which we are in search. 

No man can live alone. " No man liveth to himself, no 
man dieth to himself." No man has a right to lead his own 
life without any regard to the claims of others. As I have 
told you before, and now tell you again, there is not one 
single thing that makes the completeness, the value, the 
grandeur, the glory, the beauty of your life, that you do not 
owe to the men and women who have already lived. Are 
you capable of disregarding this obligation ? The very phys- 
ical development that makes your life, your strength, your 
beauty, is a gift. The moral nature which you possess is 
a gift which you owe to the past, to humanity. Everything 
that makes life worth living you owe to the past. Even the 
hermit who goes off by himself in solitude to-day takes with 
him, as the gift of the society that he deserts, everything 
that makes solitude tolerable. Byron might sing,— 

" There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar " ; 

but Byron's enjoyment of the sea, his interpretation of the 
music, all that made him capable of finding this society 
when alone, he had received as a gift from this toiling man- 
kind of ours. 

Not only that, but you need others every moment of your 
lives. You cannot live apart. You cannot stand alone. If 



The Self and Others 5 1 

you have written a book, you need readers. If you have 
painted a picture, you need some one to see it. If you have 
sung a song, you want some one to hear it. If you preach 
a sermon, what is it without an audience ? What is anything 
in your life apart from the relation in which you stand to 
other people ? 

Then, suppose you wish to develop this personality, this 
individuality, to its highest and finest point : you could not 
do it alone. What are those qualities in us which we 
speak of as human, as divine? Are they not sympathy, 
generosity, pity, tenderness, the desire to help ? Are they 
not those things that have been developed in relationship 
with other people, and that cannot be developed in any 
other way ? So that, in the work of developing this person- 
ality, you must be surrounded by your fellows, touching 
elbows, clasping hands with your fellow-men. 

But here is the other side of it, — you have a right to your 
own life, and the development of your own person and the 
culture of your own brain, soul, and your own enjoyment. 
Here are two personalities. Suppose one sacrifices to the 
other. So far as the universe is concerned, it is probably 
a matter of indifference which does this. Each person has 
a right to his own happiness even. 

You have a right not only, but, if you are going to be suc- 
cessful, you are under obligation to develop yourself. Who 
can teach except those who have learned ? Who can give 
money except those who have acquired it ? And, if you 
give away all the money you have, then how can you help ? 
You may even become a burden upon other ' people, and 
injure them instead of helping. If you are going to help, 
then you must make yourself strong. If you are going to 
lead any one, you must study by yourself, and learn to know 
the way. If you are going to be of service to the world, you 



52 Helps for Daily Living 

must cultivate and develop your own personality and assert 
your own selfhood. 

What, then, is the ideal of the world ? What is it that we 
are struggling to attain along this uneven path ? It is not 
the development of self to the exclusion of others. It is not 
the development of the rights of others to the suppression 
of the self. Society means simply an organization of mill- 
ions of selves, of individualities, of persons. And society 
can be perfect only in that day when all the individualities 
that compose it are perfect. So that the solution of this 
problem is the development, the culture of the individual, 
the completion of the personality, and then a right relation, 
a balance between all these personalities. 

So we end where we began, with our illustration from the 
solar system, in which there shall be sun and planet and 
moon, differing in size and bulk, differing in glory, differing 
in the service they render to each other, yet each perfectly 
related to each according to size, according to brilliancy, 
all giving, all receiving, all balanced, so that they make up 
the perfect music of the spheres. 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 



The problem of evil, — I need not state it. You are 
familiar with it in a thousand forms ; and perpetually, day by 
day, year after year, is it in your thinking a practical prob- 
lem, making you wonder as to the method by which the 
world is governed, — making you wonder as to whether there 
is, indeed, a good power above us and around us, whether 
the affairs of the world are in the hands of might, of wisdom, 
and of love. It is not strange that the question comes up 
and recurs year after year. To see a man like Keats, dying 
at the very beginning of his life, and asking that his epi- 
taph should be, " Here lies one whose name was writ in 
water " ; to think of a man like Theodore Parker, stricken 
down in mid-life, when his usefulness might have been ex- 
pected to continue, with ever-increasing power, for many a 
long year \ to hear of a cyclone that has fallen upon a vil- 
lage, destroying property and life, good and bad, young and 
old, indiscriminately ; to know of a fever or pestilence that 
infects a large district ; to read about an earthquake shak- 
ing the foundations of a city and destroying the work and 
the hopes of years ; to hear of a ship relentlessly pursued 
by pitiless storm, and, while the sailors are helplessly crying 
out to the heavens that seem not to hear, to know that it 
goes down, devoured by the hungry waves ; to see a mother 
bending over her little child, watching over it day by day, 
week by week, while it wastes away, her life one prayer that 



54 Helps for Daily Living 

the loved one may not be torn out of her arms; to see a 
young husband bereft of the one person in all the world 
that he loves with a perfect devotion ; to see little children, 
with father and mother both taken away, left in poverty, 
left in wretchedness, left to grow up in the midst of crime, 
not only to face physical suffering, but moral deterioration; 
to hear the crack of the slave whip ; to see some man liv- 
ing in affluence, surrounded by luxury, when you know that 
every dollar spent means a separate dishonesty, means dep- 
rivation for some one else, — to see these things and a hun- 
dred things that these will suggest, it is no wonder that the 
question is raised as to the government of the world. The 
presence of evil and suffering is a problem to be solved, if 
we can. 

Before proposing a way of looking at these things, I wish 
to recall to you some attempts, in the theories the world 
has made in the past and is making to-day, to see whether 
there is any light in them, any hope. 

In the far-off times, — the early ages of the world, before 
men had risen to the conception of the unity of this great 
universe, — they believed in a multiplicity of gods. It was 
easy for them on that theory to explain the evil of the world. 
All fair things, all sweet things, all good things, all bright 
things, were gifts of some loving, invisible power, some 
god that was friendly. The lightning-stroke, the destruction 
of a crop, the death of a child, — all the calamities that 
came upon them, — were the work of some one of the in- 
numerable bad gods, the malicious deities, those who took 
delight in human pain ; for they created in their fancy all 
these invisible powers about them corresponding, answer- 
ing, to all the varied experiences of their lives. Of course, 
this was only a temporary theory. 

As the world grew wiser, men could not believe in this 



The Problem of Evil 55 

diversity of supreme power ; and so that explanation passed 
away. There was a little time — brief, of short duration — 
when the highest and grandest thinkers among the Hebrews 
had a glimpse of that which I cannot help thinking is the 
true theory ; but they did not retain their vision long. One 
of the old prophets asserts that it is the one God who is the 
author both of the good and of the evil of life, and that he 
has a purpose, a meaning, in it. " I form the light, and 
create darkness : I make peace, and create evil : I, the Lord, 
do all these things." So the old prophet Isaiah represents 
Jehovah as saying. But this was only a very brief glimpse. 

The Jewish people came in contact with the Persians dur- 
ing the years of their captivity, and borrowed from them the 
germs of our modern devil. The Persians believed in a 
dualism ; that there were two gods, one of them good and 
the other bad ; that they were in perpetual conflict, one of 
them being the author and giver of all the good things and 
the other of all the evil things of life. And they had a 
dim conception of a fate or power holding within his control 
both of these lesser gods ; and so they dreamed of an ulti- 
mate consummation of all things, when all evil should disap- 
pear, having served its purpose, and the good should be 
supreme. The Jews borrowed so much of this idea of dual- 
ism as to dream of an archangel, rebellious in heaven, who 
became the enemy and tempter of mankind ; and from his 
influence evil and sorrow and all that men deplore came into 
'the world. 

The ancient Greeks had also a conception of this dualism. 
There was old Zeus, sitting on Olympus, caring little for 
men, treating them with despite, jealous of their prosperity ; 
and there was the good Prometheus, who stole the fire from 
the gods, and brought it down to men, to help them and give 
them the means of lifting themselves up above the poor 



56 Helps for Daily Living 

estate in which the gods had allowed them for ages to 
remain. This conception of a modified dualism which the 
Jews accepted has become the dominant theory of Christen- 
dom, — the belief not only in an omnipotent, all-wise, all- 
loving God, but also in the existence of this fallen arch- 
angel, who seems at times to be mighty enough to defy even 
God's omnipotence, and who is the source of all the evils that 
afflict mankind. 

Can we rest in a theory like that ? No ; for it relieves 
God not one whit of the responsibility. If there be a devil, 
he is of God's special creation or permission ; and, in either 
case, God must be ultimately responsible for all his work. 
And if the evil work that he is permitted to carry on among 
men is to have eternal results, then is the good and all-wise 
and all-loving God to be forever stained with the imputation 
of either creating on purpose or permitting everlasting evil 
to his own children. The wisdom, the justice, the love, of 
the human heart, will no longer bear a theory like that. So 
we get no peace, no help, in such an attempt at a solution of 
the problem of evil. 

There are other theories of the world, — the theory of the 
atheist that there is no God ; that we are in the hands of an 
apparently almighty, but not an all-wise nor all-good Power ; 
that there is no thought, no purpose, no goodness, in it all. 
On that theory, of course, there is no solution of the problem 
of evil. We must simply face the facts of life as bravely as 
we can, get what little good we can out of it, enjoy what 
glimpses of beauty are permitted us, snatch what taste of 
love we may, and then end it all in the dust. There is no 
purpose, no meaning, no justice, no hope. 

Then there is the theory, very popular among scientific 
men, not of the atheist, but of the agnostic. The agnostic 
takes a modest tone. He does not assume that there is no 



The Problem of Evil 57 

God, but says : I do not know whether there is or not. The 
world has never been able to find out. I do not believe the 
world ever can find out. Is there any future life, any out- 
come of all this scene of struggle, of sorrow, of tears? 
Again, he says, I do not know, nobody knows, nobody has 
ever discovered; and the probability is that nobody ever 
will. He puts the question of God and of a future life one 
side as insoluble. Is there any comfort in this theory? 
I am not raising the question whether it is true, but whether 
it gives us any help in solving the great problem of evil. 
Practically, it leaves us just where we were on the atheist's 
theory of things. We do not know. We look up into the 
heavens, and they are empty. We cry out, and they are 
dumb. We stand before the curtain that shuts us off from 
that which is beyond the grave, if there be anything. We 
try to lift a corner of that curtain, but we see only darkness. 
We bend down our ear to listen, but we hear not even a 
whisper. So, again, on this theory, we must simply be 
stoical when we face sorrow and are compelled to consider 
it. The wisest of all is he who can forget it ; for really it 
does not make a great deal of difference if there is to be no 
outcome, if there is nothing beyond. We must just take 
what good we can, gather a flower, if it be within our reach, 
as we go along our pathway, — a pathway which begins no- 
where and ends nowhere, and that many will think it hardly 
worth while to travel, after all. 

These theories, whatever may be their grandeur, what- 
ever arguments may be brought to their support, give us no 
practical help as we face the problem of sorrow, as we see 
the eyes dim with tears. They do not help us. 

Is there any theory that can help us ? I think there is. 
I think it is the enlargement, the completion, of that theory 
uttered by the prophet Isaiah, a brief vision of which was 
attained by the old Jewish seer. 



58 Helps for Daily Living 

What is it ? It assumes that God exists, that he is al- 
mighty, that he is all-wise, that he is all-loving, in spite of the 
apparent contradictions which disturb us. If it be logical, 
it must face every one of the facts that I have hinted and a 
thousand more. It must not dare to blink one of them. It 
must dare, further, to say that even the most discouraging 
fact is a part of God's plan. If it dare not say that, then 
there is no logic in it. 

But let us assume, for a moment, that God exists, that he 
is all-powerful, that he is all-wise, that he is all-good. Then 
let us assume that, on the whole and in the long run, this 
is just about the kind of world that God intended. Let us 
complete it by supposing that we are journeying towards 
some outcome good enough to justify the total process 
through which we are passing. This, at any rate, is a possi- 
ble theory. It is a theory that no man on the face of the 
earth is wise enough to disprove. It is a theory not only 
that is tenable, but, in my judgment, a good deal more tena- 
ble than any of the others that I have ever tried to examine. 
Let us look at it for a moment, and see how much it can 
do. If ever there be an outcome of this scene of life 
through which we are passing grand enough, good enough, 
blessed enough, to justify the process through which we are 
going, then every indictment based on any of the parts of 
this process falls ; and there is no reason why we should hes- 
itate to believe in the loving, omnipotent, all-wise Father, 
not only in heaven, but on earth. 

Let us see. What do we want of a theory ? Every man 
who thinks must have some theory of the universe. He has 
some thought about it, some scheme, some plan. It is a 
necessity of an intelligent, thinking being. If he gives it up, 
why then his theory is that it is such a mass of confusion 
that he cannot explain it, so even his attempt not to have a 



The Problem of Evil 59 

theory is itself practically a theory. What do we ask of a 
theory ? We need no absolute knowledge; neither you nor I 
need absolute knowledge about the world, about this scheme 
of life in which we are involved. Precisely what do we need, 
then ? We need a good, practical, working theory, — a the- 
ory that shall give us solid ground to stand on in the first 
place, a theory that shall give us courage enough to face the 
difficulties of life, a theory that shall nerve our will and 
strengthen our arm for the daily performance of duty, a the- 
ory that shall give us hope, so that we. need not be over- 
whelmed by darkness and despair, a practical working 
theory of life, a theory that shall give us standing-place and 
room to exercise all the grandest faculties with which we are 
endowed, — this is what we need. 

Now, if a theory can be found that shall do this, is it not 
presumably true ? What do scientific men ask of any the- 
ory ? Merely this, that it shall be that theory which accounts 
for the largest number of facts. Why do we accept the neb- 
ular theory of the universe, of our solar system ? Not be- 
cause there are no difficulties connected with it, not because 
there are not some facts that appear to contradict it, not 
because it is an easy solution of all the difficulties, but 
merely because it accounts for nearly all the facts, all the 
grandest facts ; and concerning those things unaccounted 
for we are at liberty to say that possibly a wider reach of 
our knowledge would make them also clear. We hold the 
nebular theory as practically demonstrated, as scientifically 
true, because it accounts for and explains all the grandest 
facts of the suns and moons and planets. 

Now, if we find a theory of human life that shall account 
for and provisionally explain all the great facts, are we not 
scientifically warranted in accepting that theory until a bet- 
ter can be brought, just as scientifically warranted as we are 



60 Helps for Daily Living 

to accept the nebular theory? If not, I for one fail to 
see why. 

This theory, then, that there is an almighty, an all-wise, 
an all-loving God, and that he has permitted all the evil and 
all the tears of the world, and that he has done it for the 
sake of the outcome, which could be better reached this way 
than in any other way, seems to me perfectly rational. I 
know of no way by which it can be disproved ; and it ac- 
counts, as no other theory with which I am acquainted is 
able to, for all the great facts of human life. This theory 
gives room for hope. I know of no other theory that does. 
And yet hope is one of the mightiest facts of human life. 
Hope is something that the universe has put in our hearts ; 
and any true theory of life must find room for it or show 
cause why. 

I believe, then, that we are scientifically warranted in 
holding to this theory in the face of all sorrow and all the 
trials of life. 

But now I wish to help you to see the consistency of this 
by making a little clearer, if I can, a few of the practical 
difficulties that confront us, that confuse our thinking, and 
that burden our hearts. I am inclined to believe that one of 
the particular things that interfere with our faith in God is 
an utter misconception as to the sweep and range of omnipo- 
tent power. We think that an omnipotent being can do any- 
thing. But that is not a correct definition of omnipotence 
which admits of no limits to the possible results of infinite 
power. God cannot commit an absurdity. It is a common- 
place to say that he cannot make two mountains without a 
valley between them ; that he cannot cover the sea with 
waves without the depressions that make what we call the 
troughs. God cannot make a hundred-year-old oak in five 
minutes. God cannot produce a result without going through 
the process that is necessary for producing the result. 



The Problem of Evil 6 1 

God must either govern this world by what we call general 
laws, or else he must govern it by a system of perpetual 
caprice, perpetual interference. An earthquake, for example, 
is merely one little incident that happens in the process of 
the cooling and shrinking of the crust of the earth under the 
guidance of natural laws. A cyclone is only a little incident 
in the working of the forces that govern the atmospheric cir- 
culation of the globe. And so almost all the physical evils of 
the world are merely incidents in the working of laws which 
are general and which in their ordinary range and sweep are 
only grandly beneficent. 

Let me state it in this way : The ordinary working of the 
natural laws, the incidental results of which are earthquakes, 
cyclones, tempests, and a thousand evils, is productive only 
of good ; and, if I should attempt to state the ratio of good 
to the evil, the evil would be so infinitesimal, as compared 
with the good, as hardly to be worthy of mention. This is 
scientific fact in relation to the results of the natural forces 
of the world. 

Now this great civilization of ours, spread over the planet, 
the ordinary working of health and disease, are under gen- 
eral laws. God must govern the world in this way, or else 
by a system of perpetual interference. What would that 
mean ? It would mean an abolition of knowledge. It would 
mean the impossibility of civilization. It would mean that no 
one of us could lay out any general plan of life. No indi- 
vidual, city, or nation could plan as to what they would do 
next week or next year. An orderly, growing civilization 
would be an impossibility in a world governed by perpetual 
interference called miracle. Suppose men believed that, if 
they got into trouble, no matter whether they had ever used 
their brains in trying to keep out of it, a miracle would hap- 
pen to prevent the result of it : what kind of a world would 



62 Helps for Daily Living 

it be? This perpetual interference would turn the world 
into a nursery for undeveloped brains and hearts, or else it 
would turn it into a mad-house in which nobody would be 
able to calculate the results of anything. So, when we flip- 
pantly and easily bring our indictment against God because 
something has happened that is a temporary and local evil, 
or because some friend has died, we assert, by implication, 
a theory of God's working that is nonsense, that is absurd, 
that is impossible, and that would result in a thousand times 
more evil than it would cure. 

Let us remember, then, that our physical health and life 
and the life of those dear to us are in the keeping of these 
general laws ; that God does not " choose," as we say, to 
take away your little child to punish you. Oh, I get so 
weary of the childish, undeveloped thought involved in the 
question, "What have I done, that God takes away my 
child ? " Done ? Perhaps nothing but your duty. The 
question of your moral goodness has no more to do with the 
life of your child than it has to do with the question whether 
there will be an earthquake to-morrow in China. Your 
moral goodness, your life with your child, your life with your 
neighbor, your faithfulness in every department of life, have 
nothing to do with the orderly working of God's laws, on 
which, after all, the prosperity and happiness of the world 
depend. There are cases, indeed, where it is the result of 
your fault, your pride, — you have exposed your child, you 
have not dressed it healthfully, you have been guilty yourself 
of culpable indulgence ; but in that case you have no right to 
ask why God has done it. But in the great majority of cases, 
where the person has inherited a weak constitution or been 
exposed to disease with no fault of ' his, the working of 
these general laws must go on for the universal good in spite 
of the incidental evil. For, as I have said, the evil wrought 
by a capricious system, by constant interference, would be 



The Problem of Evil 6$ 

unspeakably greater than that which is wrought by the ordi- 
nary method by which the world is governed. 

Now let us turn to another phase of this question, as to 
what it is possible for Omnipotence to do. Most of those 
who bring their indictment thoughtlessly, or of purpose, 
against any belief in the goodness of God, — most of them 
think that, if God had chosen, he might have created a world 
full of people perfectly wise from the beginning, and per- 
fectly good, so that no evil need to have been known among 
them. But this seems to me as thoughtless, as irrational, as 
illogical, as it is to suppose that God could create two moun- 
tains without a valley to separate them. The creation of a 
wise, learned man instantaneously, as the result of sheer 
power, seems to me sheer nonsense. Such a thing is impos- 
sible. What do we mean by knowledge ? What is the 
world's knowledge ? Is it not the summed up results of 
the world's experience? and the experience through which 
the knowledge has been attained was an absolute essential 
to its attainment. Omnipotence could not possibly help it. 
Knowledge is the result of experience. How, then, can you 
have the knowledge without experience ? and how can you 
have a finite being learning things in this world, and not have 
him make any mistakes? I do not believe, then, that this 
dream of a world full of wise people created all at once, — 
one minute blank, the next minute a million wise men, — I do 
not believe that such a thing is possible. It seems to me an 
absurdity in the very nature of the case. 

Let us apply the same thing to the idea of goodness. 
What do we mean by moral goodness, moral development, 
moral growth ? Again, do we not mean a certain quality 
that is the necessary result of experience, through coming in 
contact with good and evil ? I do not believe that it is pos- 
sible for Omnipotence to create a world full of morally cult- 
ured and developed souls all at once. Moral culture and 



64 Helps for Daily Living 

development mean simply the result of this age-long expe- 
rience, combating that which you think is wrong and gain- 
ing the victory. I do not see how it would be possible for 
God to create a kind of world of which we sometimes dream ; 
and I am inclined to think that a very strong argument could 
be made in favor of the theory that this world is the best 
possible kind of world, provided the outcome of human life 
here on earth is to be the culture and development of souls. 
If there is no good in life unless everybody can be rich, if 
there is no good in life unless everybody can experience the 
pleasure of foreign travel, if there is no good in life unless 
everybody can be free from heartache, if there is no good in 
life unless everybody can have everything that he desires, if 
there is no good in life except the attainment of the fleeting 
wish of the moment, why, then, this is a very poor kind of 
world indeed ; for there is not one in a million of us that has 
not failed in a thousand ways. But if the outcome of life is 
the culture and development of a soul, fitting it for a grand 
career beyond what we call the present, then I can see how 
this might be the best possible kind of a world for such a 
process of culture and development. And just this I do be- 
lieve with all the power of my brain and all the reverence 
of my soul : I believe that the only thing that can justify 
this life is the culture and development of a soul. But we 
know that not he who has not failed in getting rich, not he 
who has never had a disappointment, not he who has never 
been ill, not he who has never lost a friend, not he whose 
eyes have never been wet with tears, — not these are of neces- 
sity the successes of life, — though they may be, — but that 
his life is a success who, when he stands on the border land, 
stands there a self-controlled, cultivated, developed, noble, 
aspiring soul, child of the spirit of the Eternal, fitted to go 
on, step by step, up those stairways of infinity that mean 
eternal ascent, never to end. 



LIFE'S PETTY WORRIES. 



It may lie as a question in most of your minds whether 
"life's petty worries" is a theme of sufficient importance to 
ask your attention for an hour. In my opinion, just as the 
innumerable hosts of insects in the world do more to destroy 
plants, flowers, and fruits than all the storms put together, 
so it is true that the little worries of life are destructive of 
more happiness, of more peace, of more practical working 
force, more destructive of all that high fruitage of life that 
we ought to seek for, than all of life's calamities put together. 

At the outset, we need a definition, we need to fix in our 
minds what we mean by the petty, useless, preventable 
worries of life. For I take it that it is human nature, if 
conscience within or the voice of any outside person who 
attempts to speak for conscience presents an accusation 
against any of our faults, for us to attempt to evade the 
attack by mitigating the fault, by palliating it, by excusing it, 
by turning it into something else, in our imagination at least, 
sometimes even trying to dignify it by the name of a virtue. 
So far as my present acquaintance has gone, I have never 
known the victim of these petty worries who was willing to 
admit that there was anything useless about them. They 
have dignified the worry by some other name ; they have 
tried to change its character, its nature, to make themselves 
believe that it was something else, and that under the circum- 
stances it was something not only excusable, but necessary. 



66 Helps for Daily Living 

There is a story in one of the Arabian Nights concerning 
a conflict between two supernatural beings, each of whom 
had the power at will to transform himself into some 
other creature. He would be first a lion, then, when pur- 
sued by his enemy and almost caught in that shape, would 
suddenly become a bird in the air. Then, when again in 
danger, he would become a fish in the sea; and so, by 
changing himself in this Protean fashion from one form to 
another, he was enabled to escape pursuit. So as we try 
to ferret out our own faults, or as any one else tries to ferret 
them out for us, they take a thousand disguises in their at- 
tempt to elude pursuit. 

Let us then see what is worry in the sense of an anxiety that 
is inexcusable. I do not by any means intend to find fault 
with foresight, with a prudent care for the future. Indeed, 
this is one of the main marks of distinction between the bar- 
barian and the civilized man. The civilized man does take 
thought, not only for to-day, but for to-morrow, for day after 
to-morrow, for the next week and the next year. Indeed, it 
is the mark of a great mind to be able to trace the relation 
between cause and effect, to foresee consequences and pro- 
vide against contingencies. The barbarian eats whatever he 
has to eat, wears whatever he has to wear, uses whatever he 
possesses, and leaves the future to take care of itself. " The 
prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself," says the 
proverb. So there is no fault to be found with this prudence 
that forecasts results, that tries to provide against all pos- 
sible contingencies and happenings of every kind. It is not 
only right, it is duty, for a man to lay something by from 
what he earns. I believe it to be a young man's duty and a 
young woman's duty, if she or he is a wage-earner, to attempt 
to lay something by, however small it may be ; to begin with 
the very first earnings, and to think of the day when they 



Life's Petty Worries 67 

may not be able to earn, of the day when there may be some 
unusual call ; to lay by something, as the saying is, against a 
rainy day, to provide for the future, to provide for old age, 
to provide for children. All this is not only wise and right, 
but is fundamentally bound up in morals; for no man or 
woman has the right to run the risk of being some time 
dependent upon others. All this, then, is granted at the 
outset. 

I might illustrate the same point in a hundred other direc- 
tions. What would you think of a sea-captain, the master of 
a great ship, who should start out on a voyage without pro- 
viding against every conceivable contingency? He must 
take along every kind of supplies. He must take more coal 
than he will use on the voyage, for storms and head winds 
may hinder him from reaching port on the day when he ex- 
pects to reach it. This prudent foresight for the coming 
time is not what I mean by worry. 

One other thing I would mark as not only permissible, 
but necessary. In certain crises and contingencies of life 
there is an overmastering anxiety, an anxiety that is not an 
evil : it is something that one who considers consequences 
cannot help. Take the case of a mother watching over a 
sick child. She has done all she can ; she has provided the 
best nurse and best physician in her power, and yet she can- 
not lay aside this care. She is an anxious, watchful provi- 
dence every hour, day and night. 

Or suppose a surgeon dealing with an important case. He 
has made every provision ; but he knows that the life of his 
patient hangs on the success of his operation. Can he help 
a great anxiety ? He can help worry, and, if he be fit for 
his work, he will help it ; but that anxiety which carries the 
burden and all the consequences until the task is accom- 
plished, this, by as much as he is a man, he cannot escape. 



68 Helps for Daily Living 

Or take, again, the case of the captain of the great ocean 
steamer. Can he help having anxiety? If you have ever 
talked with one who is the noblest among them all, you will 
find that he comprehends the danger a great deal more than 
the most worried passenger on the steamer. He understands 
the difficulties that surround the voyage ; he understands the 
dangers from fire, from machinery giving way here or there 
in spite of every possible precaution on his part. He under- 
stands in the time of fogs that he may run into an iceberg or 
into some other ship. All these things weigh upon him ; 
and it is because he is tirelessly anxious at his post every 
moment, or certain that some other competent man is in 
his place, that the passengers can eat, talk, smoke, write, 
sing, and amuse themselves at will. They are at peace be- 
cause every nerve is tense, every faculty strained, every 
power of his being devoted to the safety of his ship. Anx- 
iety of this sort is not worry. 

What do we mean, then, by worry which is preventable, 
which is mischievous, which we can escape ? I mean that fret- 
ting, that fussy anxiety, that restlessness, that peace-destroy- 
ing condition of mind that frets and frets and frets and will 
not rest nor let any one else rest, after everything has been 
done. In order to mark more sharply the difference, I shall 
recur to the other side of one of the illustrations which I have 
already touched on. Take the case of the mother with the 
sick child. She ought to exercise all prudent care and fore- 
sight, and she does, to prevent the child becoming ill. Then 
while it is ill, and life is in the balance, she will be anxious 
necessarily ; and that anxiety will lead her to do everything 
possible for the safety of the child. But suppose beyond that 
she allows her feelings to get the better of her, becomes rest- 
less, becomes fussy, over-anxious, is not at peace, and allows 
no one else to be, shows her worry in her action, in her face, 



Life's Petty Worries 69 

in her voice, in her whole manner : then she not only does no 
good, but becomes a positive source of danger to the very- 
life which is so precious to her, and which is the source of 
her anxiety. 

And I, for one, would not wish to cross the ocean with a 
sea-captain who was worrying from the moment we started 
until we were in sight of land on the other side. Worry, 
fussiness, fret, — these all stand in the way of the efficient 
discharge of the duty which a provident foresight and a great 
manly anxiety would lead him to perform. You know plenty 
of cases of this kind of worry. I do not need to elaborately 
describe them. You confess it to yourselves in your own 
lives, and you know and recognize it on the part of your 
friends and acquaintances, where they themselves are not 
quite so ready to confess it. 

I remember cases in which men in middle life, or perhaps 
a little beyond it, who had accumulated large fortunes, wor- 
ried night and day lest in some utterly unforeseen way they 
should lose their money and die poor. I have known men 
who, after doing everything they could at their store, their 
office, during the day, seeing that every possible chance had 
been provided against, after the hour of closing had passed, 
and the key had been turned in the lock, and they had gone 
home, not only refused to rest, but to let any one else rest, 
worrying lest something unforeseen should happen, lest some 
man who owed the firm should become insolvent, lest some- 
thing unforeseen had not been provided against. And yet, as 
you will readily see, there was nothing to be done about it 
until the office should be opened the next morning. There 
was nothing they could possibly do but worry ; and of course 
the worrying would not change by one hair's breadth the 
course of events that were moving on, under the guidance of 
inexorable laws, to their necessary results. 



70 Helps for Daily Living 

I know mothers who spend a great deal of their time 
worrying about their children. Every time they go out on 
the street they wonder till they come back again if some- 
thing is not happening to them, if they have not met with a 
fall, if they have not been injured by some runaway horse. 
If they have gone for a sail, while they are enjoying the 
breeze, while they are watching the dance of the waters and 
having the grandest time imaginable, the mother imagines 
them struggling with the waves or lying dead at the bottom. 
Or, if they go skating, the mother sees nothing but holes in 
the ice and the children slipping in. Meantime, the boys 
are having the finest conceivable time. I see mothers worry- 
ing as to whether their children are going to develop well, to 
have ability in this direction or that, whether they are going 
to make a success of life, what their morals are when the 
mother is out of sight, — worrying over things that for the 
time being, at any rate, are beyond their control, and with a 
worry which does not help in the slightest degree. 

I have in mind two types of housekeeper which perhaps I 
might suggest. I remember one woman in whose house I 
boarded for a time, years ago when I was living in Califor- 
fornia, one of the best women I ever knew ; but she had al- 
lowed herself to get into such a state of perpetual worry over 
household details that five or six mornings at least out of 
the week she would appear at the breakfast table, coming 
from the kitchen where things had not gone quite right, 
flushed, heated, uncomfortable, half-angry, all her nerves 
on the outside, miserable as she could be, and bringing an 
atmosphere of anything but of peace and rest to us. She 
meant nothing by it. She thought she was doing the best 
she could ; but it was one perpetual scene of worry and fret. 
I have in mind another woman. There are thousands of both 
kinds. She kept house so perfectly that one would never 



Life's Petty Worries 71 

have known from anything she ever said or in any way she 
looked or anything she did that there was any such thing as 
housekeeping in the world : it was a mere detail of existence 
that she would no more have thought of alluding to than she 
would to the matter of putting on her collar in the morning 
as the completion of her attire. It was something under 
foot, something to be done just as one would attend to any 
other little detail of life. Certainly, that is a grand ideal, is it 
not ? These are some hints as to what I mean by worry, — 
useless, profitless worry. 

Now, what is the harm of it ? As I said at the outset, I 
believe that this utterly useless and preventable worrying on 
the part of both men and women is the greatest happiness- 
destroyer on earth. It does more to take away from the 
happiness of the world than all the sickness, all the death, all 
the pestilence, all the cyclones, all the earthquakes, all the 
great calamities of the world. The harm is certainly of suffi- 
cient magnitude to make the theme of importance. Not only 
does it destroy the happiness of the person who allows himself 
or herself to come into this state of perpetual worriment, but it 
destroys also the content, the restfulness of others, of friends 
and all those who come in contact with this person who is so 
fretted about the smaller things of life. I can enjoy a thun- 
der-storm, I can even enjoy a tempest at sea. These magnifi- 
cent displays of natural power have something of grandeur 
about them. But I do not enjoy sleet that pelts and cuts 
and irritates wherever it touches. I do not enjoy a Scotch 
mist that simply blots out the landscape and encloses you 
in a fog. I do not enjoy these petty, mean, uncomfortable 
displays of the natural forces about me. I can see some 
excuse for a man or a woman on occasion to become grandly 
angry for some grand cause. But there is nothing, no excuse, 
nothing grand, about this perpetual fretting worry that simply 



72 Helps for Daily Living 

irritates the person himself and all those with whom he comes 
in contact. 

Then, another thing. Negatively ; it does no good. Fric- 
tion is a necessary part of life. If you are to have a moving 
train, you must have steam in the engine. You may have 
all the steam you please, but there must also be friction 
between the wheel and the rail, so that the one can grip the 
other. But, beyond that, any useless friction, any lack of 
proper play on the part of the mechanism, grains of sand in 
the machine, anything that hinders its free, proper working, — 
this is friction that destroys power, that hinders advance. 
This kind of fretting that I have spoken of is this sort of 
useless friction, — not only useless, but positively injurious. 
It takes away power. The man who frets and worries over 
his business wears himself into such a condition of mind that 
he has not half the capability of meeting an emergency that 
one has who holds it at arm's length and watches it in all 
its details, and has reserve force with which to meet the 
unexpected. 

Not only that. I believe this temper of fretting and 
worrying creates a corresponding temper in those we deal 
with, and becomes an actual force in the production of just 
those disasters that we worry about and wish to escape. 

I heard, the other day, a saying of General Sherman, in 
which he compared himself with General Grant, that seemed 
to me very suggestive in this direction. He was talking 
intimately with a friend immediately after Grant had taken 
command of the Army of the Potomac, after his victories in 
the West. And he said to this friend : Grant is in many 
ways a most wonderful man. I know more about military 
history indeed than Grant does ; I know more about the 
details of military strategy than he does ; I am better trained 
in all these directions. But Grant never wastes his power. 



Life's Petty Worries 73 

He does not care anything about what the enemy may be 
doing that he cannot see. He provides against all contin- 
gencies possible ; and then he does not worry about something 
that is beyond his sight and that he can no longer control ; 
while the thought of what the enemy may be doing that I do 
not know anything about scares me to death all the time. 
It was this calm, grand power that, after it had done every- 
thing it could, held itself waiting for an emergency, and met 
the shock when it came, that constituted the grandeur of his 
character. 

Then there is another harm that this worrying does. It 
belittles the soul, belittles manhood and womanhood. Let a 
person habituate himself to this kind of life for years, and 
it is written on the face. There is no manhood or woman- 
hood there. Shakspere, in that famous line in one of his 
sonnets, has laid down the law of human life when he says : 

" My nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand." 

Let a man live all his life engaged in petty things, and he 
fritters away the grandeur of his own soul, and becomes 
himself petty. We take the shape and color of our environ- 
ment. In years of work, years of thought, years of bearing, 
years of doing, we become what we have been thinking, 
feeling, bearing, and doing. 

Leaving this part of my subject, I must hasten to that 
which is more important, perhaps, than anything that has gone 
before : What can be done about it ? How shall we get out 
of this habit and tendency ? I have several prescriptions. 

In the first place, and most important of all, we must 
recognize it, confront it, confess it, see what it is. That is 
the first step. See that it is not prudent foresight, not pru- 
dent care ; that it is not manly or womanly anxiety ; that it 



74 Helps for Daily Living 

is simply fret and worry. Draw the lines, and set this on 
one side as something that ought not to be. 

Next, learn to use your wills. We have not half waked 
up to the idea of the power that we possess in that God-like 
quality of ours that is able to say, "I will" or "I won't." 
These wills of ours are mightier than we dream. There are 
men like Napoleon who have the power, as he said he had, 
to treat his mind as if it were a chest of drawers. If he 
wished to be engaged in some one department, he pulled 
out that drawer and devoted himself to it. When he was 
through, he shut it up, and that was the end of it ; and he 
pulled out another when he chose. Most of us, however, 
have not developed our wills until we are masters of our- 
selves and our circumstances. We are the victims of our 
circumstances, victims of our passions, victims of our dreams, 
of our whims. We are blown hither and thither by every 
wind, tossed on every current, lifted on every wave, sunk in 
every trough. 

I am preaching a good deal of the time to myself, this 
morning; but I have learned one thing, — to control my men- 
tal conditions a hundred times more than I used to be able 
to, simply by the power of will. As a concrete illustration, 
you know how any anxiety or care seems magnified when you 
are half asleep. You have done all you can concerning some 
matter during the day, and you get an early sleep. At two 
or three o'clock you are awake, and this matter of business 
comes to haunt you ; and it seems ten times as important as 
it did the night before, and as it will when the sun is up in 
the morning. How many and many a night have I lain 
awake by the hour, wondering if — if — if — if ! and probably 
a large part of you have been through the same experience. 
I have learned at last that I can turn over and go to sleep by 
sheer will power, and put thought away. I say to myself, I 



Life's Petty Worries 75 

can do nothing with it until morning, anyhow ; and, by putting 
it away and resting, I am better fitted in the morning to deal 
with the problem, whatever it may be. Learn, then, that 
these worries are something that you can put away if you 
will. 

Another thing you can do. You can stop thinking for a 
little while about yourself and look over the world and see 
its great need and sorrow, and see the great causes that men 
and women have for sorrow and tears and heartache, and 
be ashamed of yourself that you fritter away your efforts 
over things of such little account. Learn the lesson hinted 
in a saying that I have quoted before from Wilberforce. 
When a man came to him, fretting over the question whether 
Wilberforce's soul was saved, — for you can fret as uselessly 
over your soul as over anything else, — Wilberforce said, " I 
had absolutely forgotten that I had a soul." How had he 
forgotten it? By engaging in noble work for the help of 
mankind. 

Another thing you can do. You can take an inventory of 
your circumstances and possessions and see how much you 
would have left provided all that you fear is going to happen 
should happen ; see whether the end of the world would 
really be at hand. I remember the case of an old clergy- 
man and his wife down in Connecticut. Their house was 
burned down one night, and the next morning his wife and 
he were talking over affairs ; and she was utterly heart- 
broken and overwhelmed, and she said, "Everything we had 
in the world is gone." But he replied : " Yes, everything 
except a few things. You and I are here ; and we are well, 
and we love each other and are bound up in each other. 
We have the children, we have the opportunity to go to work 
again, we have books, we have all the art and literature and 
history of the world, all that has been achieved, all its great 



y6 Helps for Daily Living 

names and memories ; we have the beautiful world all about 
us and the sky over our heads ; we have God and we have 
immortality ; everything is gone but — these ! " 

I take it that the most of us, if we should sit down when 
we are worrying as to any particular thing that is likely to 
happen, and say, Let it happen : even if it does, we have so 
and so left, would find that the cause of the worry and fret 
was very slight indeed. 

But there is another thing more important still that you 
can do. I have hinted at it partly in what I have already 
said. You can become engaged in more important work, 
interested in some great cause, so that you will forget to 
worry about little and useless things. You know how nat- 
ural, how simple, that law is. There are many cases on 
record of soldiers who, in the midst of a battle, have not 
even noticed that they were struck by a bullet until they had 
completed the charge, or had captured the fort which they 
were endeavoring to take ; wounded, perhaps, so that life was 
in danger, or even it may be fatally, and yet so intent, so 
earnest, on the more important thing that they did not know 
it. I have known a man in the heat of a great public ora- 
tion to become so absorbed in what he was saying that, 
when he brought his hand down in an important gesture so 
hard as to break some of the bones, he did not discover it 
till he was through. 

Suppose you are sitting on a hotel piazza at the seaside 
some summer afternoon. It is pretty warm, and you are 
very uncomfortable, and you are fretting and worrying about 
it and saying that it is the hottest day that ever was, and 
you are fanning and trying to keep cool j and, just as you are 
thinking that the most important thing in the world is to get 
comfortable, the cry comes that a man is drowning. You 
rush to the rescue ; and you may become so heated that the 



Life's Petty Worries JJ 

question whether you were warm before sinks into insignifi- 
cance. The perspiration may drop from your brow ; but, by 
the time you have exerted yourself for an hour, you have for- 
gotten whether the day is hot and whether you are comfort- 
able or not. 

Learn, then, that these trifles can be subordinated to 
higher things ; that you can become interested in something 
better ; that you can make your life worth something more 
to your fellow-men, and do it in such a way that the things 
that you hitherto fretted about shall be utterly forgotten. 
There are thousands of men who throw themselves away, 
fritter away their time, for lack of an object in life. Perhaps 
some of you with good memories may recall that some years 
ago I used as an illustration a reference to a man who at- 
tempted suicide, a wealthy man who had nothing to do. He 
did not succeed in taking his own life ; and, when some one 
asked why he did it, he said, "Oh, I got so tired of but- 
toning and unbuttoning." He had nothing to take up his 
attention from the details of getting up in the morning and 
going to bed at night. No wonder that he got tired and 
tried to commit suicide. Emerson hit at the same thing in 
his striking saying when discussing the question of immor- 
tality. He said there was no reason why we should hope 
for it unless there was some purpose in it; that a man 
would hardly care to have another life "for the sake of 
wearing out his old boots." Unless a man has some high 
purpose in life that makes him forget the petty, poor, mean 
details, he will worry and fret. 

As a last and closing thought, and as completing the one 
already touched upon, let us learn to climb up into the 
heights, to climb up into the thought of sonship with God, 
of being a co-worker with him in achieving the grand results 
towards which this human civilization of ours is tending. 



78 Helps for Daily Living 

When we get up high enough, even the mountains become 
level. 

Do you remember that little fragment in Tennyson which 
hints the point so finely, where he pictures an eagle stand- 
ing on a mountain, looking sheer down some thousands of 
feet to where the sea is breaking on the beach ? If you stood 
on the beach, it would be all turmoil, and in the time of 
storm one might speak of waves mountain high. But the 
eagle stands on the height ; and, as Tennyson expresses it, 
"The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls." He is so high 
that the waves are nothing. I believe that it is possible for 
us to climb up into the heights of the soul, to get so into 
sympathy with the great purposes of God in the education 
and lifting up of this world that the little, petty, mean things 
of life that worry and disturb and trouble us shall sink out of 
sight or become insignificant. When we have taken hold of 
God's hand in this way, and are sure of him and of ourselves, 
what does it matter whether we lose a hundred dollars or 
gain it, whether we are sick to-day or well, whether this 
project of business succeeds or fails, whether even we die 
or live ? All these details, the incidents of our career, be- 
come petty, because we are sons of God, and share his life 
and his destiny. 



THE COMMONPLACE. 



The lives of the great majority of men in all ages have 
been commonplace. And what is true of the past is true of 
to-day, and of necessity it will be true in the future. The 
great mass of us must be content, if content we find any- 
where, with leading commonplace, obscure lives, with engag- 
ing ourselves in commonplace occupations, in the perform- 
ance of the commonplace round of daily duties. All men 
cannot be great : if they were, it would be the abolition of 
greatness. For what we mean by greatness is that some one 
overtops his fellows. A person five feet tall would be a 
giant to a race whose average height was no more than three 
feet ; but, if all men were ten feet tall, no one would be a 
giant. It is true, then, that the great majority must be prac- 
tically unknown. If everybody wrote books, who would 
read them ? If everybody led armies, where would be the 
armies to lead ? If everybody were public speakers, where 
would be the audiences ? A business man finds his daily 
life a very ordinary affair, in the main. Now and then, of 
course, there are excitements, now and then an opportunity 
for a brilliant stroke ; but ordinarily it is getting up in the 
morning, going down to the store or office, opening the mail, 
dealing with ordinary orders from very ordinary people. It 
is a mere routine of common transactions. The same is true 



80 Helps for Daily Living 

of any profession. No matter what a man's occupation may 
be, if he becomes familiar with it, by that very fact it be- 
comes commonplace to him ; so that the minister, the lawyer, 
the physician, or the judge on his bench, is engaged in what 
to him is a dull routine, a wearisome, monotonous routine of 
daily toil. And the mother superintending the house, taking 
care of the children, seeing that everything is in its place and 
in order, watching lest the little ones expose themselves to 
harm, lest their health be endangered, superintending such 
commonplace matters as clothing and food, looking after 
their lessons, — this whole round seems a tedious, common- 
place thing, one that she can very easily weary of, and one 
that many a time she will be willing, for a little time at least, 
to escape. 

The danger growing out of this fact is that we shall under- 
estimate the meaning, the significance, of life, because we 
find it commonplace ; that we shall think it wearisome, of 
little account; that we shall lower it in our estimate and not 
half appreciate its inner meaning, not comprehend its dig- 
nity, its possible grandeur ; that we shall say it is not worth 
while. I see people doing common things badly, who appar- 
ently feel as though, if they had some uncommon thing to do, 
there would be a motive : they would rise to the height of 
the occasion and prove themselves worthy of its dignity. I 
hear people every little while saying, My life is of no ac- 
count : anybody else could do what I am doing quite as well 
or better than I. If I could write a book, if I were free 
from this drudgery and had time to unfold and develop that 
which is in me, I could do some great thing, something 
worthy of me, something worth being done. So people on 
every hand excuse themselves for the poor doing of what 
seem to them poor things. They lower in this way the level 
of their lives, and they lower and belittle the possibilities of 



The Commonplace 81 

their own natures, because we are apt to become no higher 
and no finer than we think, than we imagine, than we dream. 

I wish then, if I may, this morning, to help you to appre- 
ciate a little better the commonplace, to see what it means, 
what underlies it, what are the possibilities that constitute it. 

I desire to hint a few things concerning the importance 
of this commonplace world and commonplace life before ask- 
ing your attention to some suggestions that will follow. 

In the first place, note the fact that the most important 
things in all the world are the commonplace things. The 
things we can least well do without are the commonplace 
things. We could spare the marble, if need be. We could 
spare the jasper, the amethyst. We could comfortably get 
along without any of the precious stones of the world. But 
the very base of the earth, the commonplace granite, the 
foundation on which all things rest, and the commonplace 
brick, the commonplace materials with which we build our 
stores and our homes, — these are of incalculably greater 
importance than all those things that we wear for jewels and 
ornament. 

And so when we come up from the inanimate to the ani- 
mate world. We go to a museum or menagerie to note some 
curious structure of animal form, some rarity brought from 
some far-off clime; but it is the commonplace horse, the 
commonplace dog, the commonplace fowl, that is important 
and necessary to our life. And, when we come up to man 
himself, precisely the same thing is true. If we must do it, 
we could spare the geniuses better than we can spare the 
commonplace men of the world. For what does our com- 
mercial prosperity rest upon ? On the commonplace, every- 
day honesty of the common, every-day business men. What 
does our political security rest on ? Upon the commonplace 
intelligence and honesty of the average citizen. Grant used 



82 Helps for Daily Living 

always to say that the glory of the war was given to the 
wrong persons. It was not himself and Sherman and Sheri- 
dan and Thomas and Meade, the leaders, who really won. 
They would have been absolutely powerless, had it not been 
for the strong, loyal sentiment of the people, to start with, 
which led them to take their places as common soldiers 
in the ranks, and, when they had taken them, to be faithful 
even to death to the commonplace duties of the march and 
the sentry, and the steadiness with which they met the fire 
of the enemy. 

And so in regard to matters of opinion. I do not stand, 
as you know, with the majority in matters of belief ; and yet 
I freely confess, without fear as to what may be deduced as 
the logical result from it, that in ordinary matters, nine times 
out of ten, it is the average opinion of the average man that 
is right. It is generally safer to walk in the beaten path 
than it is to seek a new way through the woods. True, in- 
deed, it is that, if there were nothing else in the world ex- 
cept the average, ordinary opinion of the average man, the 
world would make little progress. But nine times in ten, 
when a man steps out from the ranks of ordinary people, 
with some new theory about business, about society, about 
religion, he is wrong, and the average sense of the common 
people is right in refusing to follow him. Now and then, 
of course, — or there never would be any progress, — there 
comes a time when he who stands and proclaims a new truth 
and calls the world to follow him is right, speaking for God 
and the larger humanity ; but ordinarily the common sense 
of the world is to be followed. 

Not only, then, is the commonplace the most important 
thing, but in the commonplace rests the beauty of the world. 
We sometimes talk as though a few cultured, rich, refined 
people had a monopoly of all the beautiful things of life. 



The Commonplace 83 

They have a fine residence, beautiful furniture, and are able 
to place beautiful pictures on the walls ; and we are there- 
fore apt to narrow down our conception of what it is to pos- 
sess the world's beauty to an admiration of these things that 
very few people possess. And yet what is it that makes up 
the beauty of the world ? It is not even the flowers. The 
most important element of the world's beauty is the common 
grasses that are trampled down in every field, the common 
blue overhead, the common green of the waters, the com- 
mon shimmer of the sunshine. And when you study any of 
these natural glories of the world, and find out what consti- 
tutes it, you find that they are made up of very common- 
place materials. Campbell says of the blue of the distant 
mountains, — 

" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue." 

It is only the air that covers them with its blue mantle, 
this common air. That which constitutes the magnificence 
of the highest mountain peak is the dust that we trample 
under foot. And, when you examine the wonder of the sun- 
set, what is it ? Commonplace light playing with common- 
place mist. If it enveloped you, you would call it fog, and 
think it very uncomfortable and disagreeable. It is only 
this commonplace mist transfigured in the glory of the com- 
monplace light that makes the magnificence of that " sunset 
couch at even." So the beauty of the world. 

Every father, every mother, if he will stop to think, or if 
she will stop to think, knows that he or she has more beauty 
in the child's eyes than all the wealth of all the world could 
buy. 

And where is the glory of the world? Where is its ro- 
mance, its heroism, its honor? Why, we look back some- 
times for these. We read the stories of ancient heroism, of 



84 Helps for Daily Living 

the classic times, of mythology. We read the " Arabian 
Nights," or we go off with some magician into a romance 
world that he has created ; and here we think we find the 
wonderful things of the world, while the wonders of the 
world are close at hand. There has nothing ever been told 
in fable or in tale of magician that is one-half or one-thou- 
sandth part so wonderful, so mysterious, as the processes of 
nature going on round us that are the commonplace of our 
every-day life. 

Next spring, suppose you think a little. Take the seed of 
a rose and plant it and watch its growth. What is there in 
this seed ? Nothing : no color, no fragrance, no life, no 
power of any kind, apparently. It seems the most feeble, 
helpless, useless thing. But plant it in the commonplace 
soil, and let the commonplace rain fall, and the common- 
place sunshine warm the mould. By and by a little stalk 
comes up through the soil, then the leaf with its beautiful 
color, and then at last the unfolding flower. Where do the 
color, that marvellous tinting, that subtle fragrance come 
from ? How are they evolved from this little, tiny seed, from 
this commonplace dust and the commonplace rain and sun- 
shine ? 

We know, indeed, — and this leads us across the threshold 
of another wonder that the world has never fathomed, — that 
the rose has no fragrance, no color. We know that the 
color, the fragrance, all the beauty we talk of, are simply in 
the brain. They are only movements, motions, that have 
been translated by this mysterious mind of ours, — how, why, 
nobody knows. Here is a wonder that dwarfs all the fable 
and all the miracle of all the world. 

Then the wonder of human love. Did anybody ever 
fathom it ? Keats says most beautifully, — 

"Common as light is love, 
And its familiar voice wearies not ever." 



The Commonplace 85 

But what is it? How is it that a man or a woman walks 
through the world in the midst of the commonplace multi- 
tude, and is as indifferent to them all as though he were 
walking among the trees of the forest, and at last some day 
the rustle of a dress, the glance of an eye, the touch of a 
finger, and a life's fate hangs on a word ? In the presence 
of this love, work becomes easy, burdens become light, all 
darkness is shot through with sunshine, and the world is 
transformed and filled with glory. Who ever explained it ? 
Yet it is perfectly commonplace. 

Then let me hint a similar truth concerning religion. The 
important thing about religion, — what is it? What is the 
best thing that any religion on earth ever did or ever can 
do ? Its finest flower is a gentle, true, loving, helpful man 
or woman. The great thing about a religion is not fables 
that encircle its birth, not the cycle of myth and mystery 
that girdles its founder, not the story of children unnaturally 
born. We talk of the " Madonna and the Child." Every 
father has seen the Madonna and the Child in his own home, 
and a more wonderful Madonna than any that ancient story 
tells us about. The wonderful thing about religion is not its 
ritual, its magnificent ceremonial, its grand cathedrals. All 
these are nothing and worse than nothing, except as they 
create the perfectly commonplace things, — love, duty, ten- 
derness, gentleness, and human help. These commonplace 
things are the most important things in all the religion 
of the world. 

Then, when we look to our sources of happiness, is not 
the same thing true ? I suppose that most men and women 
spend about half their lives before they learn this, and a 
great many of them seem never to learn it at all. You will 
find some man climbing the ladder of fame, of power, of 
wealth, who has reached almost the top. He is powerful, 



86 Helps for Daily Living 

rich, mighty, the envy of those beneath him ; but he himself 
is miserable, discontented, worried, unhappy. Why? Per- 
haps purely from envy of some one who occupies one round 
above him ; while, beneath him, at the very bottom of the 
ladder, are thousands of people contented and happy. I 
have known rich people, and I have known poor people; 
and it is my opinion that the largest number of happy people 
that I have ever seen are among neither the very rich nor 
the very poor. They are found among our commonplace 
people who have enough to live comfortably, quietly, simply, 
and who have sense enough to be happy with what they 
have rather than be willing to throw away everything be- 
cause they do not possess something else. Every man who 
stops and thinks for five minutes knows that the elements of 
human happiness are not in the extraordinary things, not in 
those things accessible only to the few. It would take only 
a glimpse behind the curtain to undeceive any who are un- 
wise enough to suppose that all the rich and all the prosper- 
ous are therefore happy. 

What are the elements of happiness? Health. I shall 
never forget how, some years ago, as I met a lady walking 
on the street, — a lady whose life was one of hard labor, as 
she was at the head of a great school, — she said to me, 
" Mr. Savage, it is perfect ecstasy to me just to breathe ! " 
She was so well that the very air was a delight, and the sun 
beauty. The whole world played on an instrument perfectly 
in tune. What could the result be but music? Health, 
then, is one element of happiness. 

A friend. Who has a friend ? Any one who is worthy 
of one may have one, — a friend, a sense of companionship, 
some one to sympathize with your feelings, your purposes, 
your ideas, your views of life, the opportunity for exchange 
of sympathy and sentiment. 



The Commonplace 8? 

A book. The ability to read, to hold converse with the 
great of all ages; an eye trained to see things, to note the 
significance, the beauty, the meaning of the world ; an ear, 
to listen, to detect the distinction between discord and 
music, — these are commonplace things ; but they are the 
elements of human happiness. There is no one thing 
needful for happiness that is not accessible to-day to any 
healthful, earnest, faithful soul. 

And heaven, if we ever attain it, — oh ! we waste so much 
of what might be heaven here dreaming about one some- 
where else, — heaven, when we get it, what will constitute 
its happiness ? Not the sea of glass, the golden streets and 
jewelled gates, — none of these things. It will be only 
human companionship, human love, sympathy, earnest labor 
for some earnest end. You cannot frame human happiness 
out of any other materials than these. It is not the place, 
not the surroundings : it is the being that determines whether 
we are happy or miserable. 

Such, then, being the case, I wish to suggest two or three 
things, by way of inference or lesson, that ought at any rate 
to follow from this. 

First, I wish you to note that the wonder of the world, its 
art, its beauty, its music, its poetry, all the wonderful things 
of which we dream, are just beneath the surface of our com- 
monplace lives. Where are the dramas, the epics, the 
oratorios, the operas, the poems, the songs ? They are all 
round us. There were thousands of people who lived in 
Homer's time who did not see an epic, but he did. There 
were thousands surrounding Beethoven who heard no music, 
but he heard it. There were thousands in the time of Shak- 
spere who saw no dramas, and yet life was one drama to him. 
These things are right about us all the time. It only needs 
eyes to see, ears to hear, fingers to execute, and patience 



88 Helps for Daily Living 

to wait, when out of the commonplace is wrought a statue, 
is breathed a poem, is sung a song, is recited a drama. 
These things are all here. 

Another thing ought to be a comfort to all of us. It is 
infinite comfort to me. I know that the same quality as that 
which is manifested in the heroic, in the music, in the art, in 
the drama of the world, the same quality inheres in and is a 
part of every commonplace man and woman. If there were 
not something of Beethoven in my nature, Beethoven could 
not speak to me, and I could not respond. If there were not 
something of Shakspere in me, he would have no voice for 
my soul. If there were not something of Raphael in me, I 
could see nothing in Raphael. And what is true of me is 
true of every man and woman on the face of the earth who 
can be touched or thrilled or lifted up by sculpture, by paint- 
ing, by art of any kind. These things are in you all. They 
are a part of your nature. You are of the same kind as 
Michel Angelo and Dante and Goethe and Gautama and 
Jesus, or else they could not have sprung out of common 
human nature and have any word that common human nat- 
ure could comprehend. 

Then there is another thing I wish you to note, — the fact 
that heroism, greatness, genius of any kind, is nothing more 
nor less than the commonplace lifted to a higher pitch. 
What is the sublimity of the mountain ? Only the common 
earth heaved thousands of feet into the air. What is the 
sublimity of a wave in a storm ? It is the same kind of 
water that you may gather as you walk the beach and hold 
in your hand, flashing up into the sunshine or brightening 
out into this whiteness against the blackness of the storm. 
What is the heroism of the world ? It is only quiet, faithful 
performance of duty when called upon to manifest itself on 
some occasion that calls for great sacrifice, — the same quiet 



The Commonplace 89 

duty placed in a new set of circumstances, manifesting itself 
in another way, precisely as it is the common electricity that 
runs on our daily errands that on certain occasions flashes 
out in the brilliancy of the lightning that sets the sky aflame. 
And this commonplace heroism that is faithful in obscure 
ways is much more wonderful than that which ordinarily 
goes by the name of heroism. It was no very wonderful 
thing, I think, for Sheridan, being Sheridan, when he found 
the army in flight, to mount his horse and ride to Winches- 
ter twenty 7 miles away, riding into song, riding into eternal 
fame, as he knew he was if he succeeded, a nation looking 
on, the world ready to clap hands and shout its pasan of vic- 
tory. It seems to me that it was a much easier thing than 
for one of those frightened, commonplace foot-soldiers whom 
he met in retreat to turn about and march into the face 02 
death, to march into no song, into no glory, but only into the 
obscurity of the smoke of battle and down into a grave with- 
out even a name, perhaps, telling who slept there. I think 
that was the grander heroism. So the heroism of common 
life which is faithful to common duties is above that which is 
recited in books and chanted in pasans of triumph. 

This suggests another point. We are apt to delude our- 
selves with the idea that this commonplace life of ours is 
not fruitful in opportunities. We say : If we only had a 
chance. The days are so short. They are filled and frit- 
tered away with such tiny cares. But what is a day ? Emer- 
son says somewhere, " To-day is a king in disguise." Some- 
body has said that a hero is never a hero to his valet. It 
takes a hero to recognize a hero. It takes a king to look 
level into the eyes of a king and know him for what he is. 
If your days are beggars, and not kings, it is because the 
rags are about you instead of being about the day. Note 



90 Helps for Daily Living 

the meaning of that grand sentence which closes Lowell's 
great poem on Columbus : — 

" One poor day ! 
Remember whose, and not how short it is ! 
It is God's day, it is Columbus's. 
A lavish day ! One day, with life and heart, 
Is more than time enough to find a world ! " 

As for opportunity, I must recite to you a poem by a man 
who died too soon, Edward Rowland Sill, — a poem entitled 
" Opportunity " : — 

" This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream : — 
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; 
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 

" A craven hung along the battle's edge, 
And thought, ' Had I a sword of keener steel, — 
That blue blade that the King's son bears, — but this 
Blunt thing! ' — he snapped and flung it from his hand, 
And lowering crept away and left the field. 

"Then came the King's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, 
And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout 
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, 
And saved a great cause that heroic day." 

There are opportunities enough. The people who echo 
Hamlet's phrase, — 

"The time is out of joint. O cursed spite 
That ever I was born to set it right ! " — 

are probably like Hamlet. Hamlet was not born to set any 
time right. No Hamlet-like man ever yet helped the world, 



The CommoJiplace 91 

though it were out of joint. It needs a man with will, reso- 
lution, capable of action, to help the time. Hamlet had a 
hundred opportunities, but he spent them in speculating 
instead of acting. He spent them in talking about what a 
poor miserable affair this human life is. We follow Hamlet's 
example. The time may be out of joint: let us be in tune 
with the great purposes of the world, and there shall be 
opportunities enough found for heroism. 

Then let us remember at the last that it is just this drudg- 
ery of life, just the attrition of these ceaseless, commonplace 
duties, that are to shape our souls, if we will, into the like- 
ness of the divine. It was commonplace work for Michel 
Angelo to hew out his Moses and his David from the block 
of marble. It was tedious, tiresome work, chipping little 
by little, — stone mason's work, so far as the drudgery side 
of it was concerned. But the supreme artist did not escape 
drudgery and commonplace toil. He was one of the most 
tireless and hard workers of the world. The only difference 
between him and us was that he dreamed a beauty hidden in 
the stone which should be seen as the result of his tireless 
drudgery and toil, and he sought to find it. 

There is a hidden glory, beauty, sublimity, in our common- 
place life that shall yet be realized. We have not the ar- 
tistic genius yet to see it ; but it will change the meaning and 
purpose of our life, and make that grand which we think only 
commonplace. 



HELPING. 



" Let every man look out for number one, and the whole 
world will be looked out for," is a very popular saying. A 
little thought, however, will reveal the fact that it is the 
quintessence and very motto of selfishness. And yet at first 
sight, until we look a little beneath the surface to discover 
the working of the principle, it seems to be the utterance of 
one of the central ideas of that philosophy of the universe 
which has been generally accepted by the most competent 
thinkers at the present time. You know that Darwin teaches 
us that we are in the midst — not only we men and women, 
but all things that are — of a struggle for life, and that it 
is the fittest that survives. Note a misconception here. 
Darwinism does not teach the survival of the fittest, morally 
or spiritually, of necessity. That is not the meaning of the 
word "fittest" as it is used. It simply teaches that the 
winner in this great struggle for life is of necessity the one 
best fitted to control the conditions, best fitted to win, in 
short, in that particular battle. And the world does seem to 
be under the dominion of this law. As you go out into your 
yards in the early spring, the battle is all around you. You 
may feel the beauty of the scene, thinking of the blue sky 
overhead, the soft sunshine, the new warmth in the air ; but 
the grass-blades at your feet are engaged, though not con- 
scious of it, in a fierce struggle for life. That particular 
blade of grass which happens to have the best soil, which 



Helping 93 

is the best watered, which is played upon by the life-giving 
air to the largest extent, which has plenty of sunshine, — that 
particular blade wins in the battle of life. Those that lack 
these favoring conditions die out, or at least attain only a 
stunted or abortive growth. In the struggle for life on the 
lower plane of the inanimate, there is of course no pity, no 
sympathy, no helpfulness. The trees in the forest reach up 
to the sunlight, spread out their branches widely to the air, 
and the one that has the freest room and the best conditions 
becomes the mightiest of the trees. But there is no sym- 
pathy between tree and tree. No tree ever helps another 
tree, or pities its failure or foregoes a little of its own advan- 
tage for the sake of one less favorably circumstanced. 

When we come up into the animal world, the same princi- 
ple is perpetually and pitilessly at work. Here, indeed, as 
among the grasses and trees and all forms of unconscious 
life, the law works only for the production of the best con- 
ceivable results. The finest wings, the swiftest runners, the 
grandest development of muscular power, the acutest cun- 
ning, these things that make the different animals and birds 
strong, fleet, beautiful, are simply the results of this inces- 
sant, pitiless battle for life ; and no one animal thinks of stop- 
ping to help or pity another. We do, indeed, find traces of 
sympathy as we come up to those animals that are nearest to 
man. Undoubtedly, we find here the germs of those ethical 
ideas which have come at last to be the dominant force of 
human life. When we reach the human race, when we come 
to deal with man in the old days of barbarism of the lowest 
type, we find substantially this same natural law — the battle 
for life and the survival of the fittest — at work in all its 
rigor. After a little, there comes in a change. There begins 
to show itself the working of another law mightier than this 
called natural selection. It is natural indeed, but we give it 



94 Helps for Daily Living 

a name to indicate the different and higher method of its 
working. We call it "human selection." Human love, 
human feeling, human sympathy, human tenderness, human 
pity, — these begin in a half-crude and rudimentary way to 
manifest themselves and to modify the law as it works 
among the unconscious forces of the world. A man, for 
example, loves a woman with a half-barbaric affection, per- 
haps. He chooses her for a wife. He no longer fights sim- 
ply for his own individuality, but he thinks of her as now a 
part of himself. He thinks of her perhaps as the dearest part 
of himself, and the power of sympathy and love makes him 
fight no longer simply for his own personal existence, for food, 
for shelter, for clothing, for adornment, for luxuries of one 
kind and another for himself; but he fights for her and she for 
him,so that the selfishness begins to open out into the rudi- 
mentary blossom of that which is unselfish. A child is born • 
and there is now a group of three, then four, five, six, what- 
ever the number may be, — the group called the family, — a 
family bound by ties of love and sympathy, so that the man 
thinks of all these as only parts of himself, to be thought of, 
to be cared for as much as himself, and, if he be noble, to be 
thought of even more than himself. Here is the birth of the 
principle of sympathy and helpfulness extended beyond the 
limits of the individual life. 

The family enlarges and grows until we have a patriarchal 
tribe which may widen out until it numbers hundreds and 
thousands. There may be only a feeling of antagonism 
towards any other family or tribe, but within the limits of 
this there is a certain degree of mutual sympathy and help- 
fulness. 

By and by, a new step is taken. It was taken in ancient 
Athens. I do not remember now the year or the name of 
the ruler under whom it occurred, but the change was made 



Helping 95 

there from the tribal organization to the territorial one. Not 
all the people that were supposed to be bound together by 
ties of kinship, by ties of blood merely, but all those within 
certain definite territorial limits, were looked upon as one 
people ; and it was this one people against the world. Other 
peoples were supposed to be antagonists or rivals. As these 
bodies of people enlarged, as the bounds of sympathy 
widened, there came at last into the thought and heart of 
the noblest men a dream of humanity, until the old Roman 
writer could express himself by saying, "I am a man, and 
nothing which is human is foreign to my sympathy." Then 
came the dream of what Tennyson has called 

" The Parliament of man, the Federation of the world," 

which is a dream yet ; for neither politically, socially, indus- 
trially, nor religiously, have we risen to the practical carry- 
ing out of these grandly human ideas. We have risen at 
the most no higher than patriotism. It is our country still 
against the world, — only the larger family. If an American 
is injured somewhere in Central Africa, we feel ourselves 
bound to call the tribes that injured him to account. If 
a Frenchman be injured there, we leave it for France : it is 
none of our concern. We take care of Americans : we 
do not yet feel bound to take care of men. 

In the matter of helpfulness there are various forms of 
exercising it. There are still a large number of people who 
question whether we ought not to revert to the older and 
lower working of the law of natural selection \ and, at first 
sight, it seems promising. It would be cruel surgery; but 
we have learned that surgery is sometimes needed, and that 
the results are an accretion of human happiness. Suppose, 
for example, that we should do as some of the ancient 



g6 Helps for Daily Living 

nations that we call civilized did. Suppose we should 
expose or leave to perish malformed or weak-minded chil- 
dren. Suppose we should let the weakest go to the wall. 
Suppose we should let the crippled and maimed, the feeble- 
minded and incompetent, be trodden down under foot and 
so blotted out. It would be a quick and effectual way of 
disposing of vice, of crime, of weakness of every kind. Sup- 
pose we let the strong and the fair and the successful win, and 
let the perishing classes perish, and the quicker, the better. 
It would seem at first like the creation of a finer, higher type 
of manhood. We apply that method of cultivation to our 
gardens, fields, and parks. We weed out and destroy those 
growths that are not healthful, not beautiful, not successful, 
in the strife for life ; and the result is a fairer and better 
growth, a finer garden, a finer park, more beautiful fields, 
better agricultural results. Suppose we should try it in our 
dealing with humanity. The result would be clear heads, 
strong brains, brawny arms, muscular and healthy bodies. 
It would be undoubtedly the finest type of human animal 
that the world has ever seen. But what else ? We have 
learned to know that these qualities which are of the highest 
degree, that are peculiar to humanity, are just the ones that 
would have to be destroyed in the process. We should be 
grand animals, but animals only. We should have fine 
brains, fine muscles ; but the heart, the feelings, tenderness, 
sympathy, love, all the finer, sweeter intuitions and aspira- 
tions, would have been extinguished. So that, in order to 
let this law of natural selection have free play on the human 
plane, we should have to pursue a course of human suicide. 
Animals would live again, and man would die. There would 
be no more humanity, in the higher sense of the word, on 
the face of the earth. 

Note, then, this fact. We have arrived at this stage in 



Helping 97 

our morning's discussion. We are so bound together, so 
linked in with our fellow-men, that we are one as a race ; that 
we cannot shake off the obligations of being helpful towards 
our fellows without abdicating our souls, without ceasing to 
be sons and daughters of God. Mr. Hale has a saying — 
I cannot quote it word for word, but only the idea — that is 
apt and wise, as many of his sayings are found to be. He 
says that the words that begin with con, — converse, etc., — 
meaning with, imply sympathy and coworking, and are divine 
words; and that the words that begin with dis, implying 
separation, division, disunion, — these words are infernal 
words. Whether we find it to be true in regard to all words 
spelled with con and dis in the dictionary or not, the heart 
of the thought is true. To be men and women, then, in the 
highest and truest sense of the word, we must be helpers of 
our fellow-men, — helpers of the weak, the crippled, the 
vicious, the incompetent, and helpers the more patiently by 
as much as the need is deep-seated and hard to be removed. 

Let us turn, then, to another phase of our subject, and 
see something of what it is to help our fellows. How, in 
what departments of life, do they need help ? 

Here let us never forget that we help men most, and help 
them most permanently, when we help them in the higher 
ranges of their being instead of the lower. We should 
help, indeed, in the lower none the less for this considera- 
tion, because these lower needs are immediate. They press 
upon us. They call for aid. We cannot stand in the pres- 
ence of pain, and not wish to alleviate it ; in the presence 
of hunger, and not wish to give food ; in the presence of 
nakedness, without desiring to clothe it ; in the presence of 
any physical evil or sorrow, without our hearts, if they be hu- 
mane, leaping with the purpose to alleviate. But these lower 
needs, if we look at them rightly, profoundly, are only symp- 



gS Helps for Daily Living 

toms. We must, indeed, doctor the symptoms ; but the 
highest help is the removal of the causes. Feed the hungry, 
clothe the needy, alleviate the suffering that is on every 
hand, and do this over and over again ; but it is not cure. 
In very few cases is the real need of the soul cured on the 
lower plane. 

But suppose we go up towards the higher. Suppose we 
recognize the fact that the best help is in the direction of 
self-controlled manhood and womanhood, educated brain and 
hand. This work, of course, calls for our help, especially in 
the department of childhood ; for we can educate very little, 
and only superficially, those who are older. And the great 
help that we ought to render towards those who need is 
this help in the higher ranges. Help people to think cor- 
rectly, to feel nobly, to be masters of themselves and of their 
surroundings, — that kind of mastery that comes from a true 
education, such an education as is the unfolding and devel- 
opment of all the native powers and faculties of being. 
When we have done this, do you not see that we have gone 
straight to the fountain-head of the evil, and that, in curing 
in a higher range, we work not a temporary aid, but a per- 
manent cure ? Every philosophical thinker and student of 
the history of human progress will bear out the statement 
as true that nearly all the poverty, nearly all the vice, nearly 
all the crime, nearly all the suffering, nearly all the need of 
the world, have their source not primarily in physical evils, 
physical wants, physical sorrows, but in thought, in charac- 
ter. It is the lack of moral fibre, it is the lack of self-con- 
trol, the lack of foresight, the lack of developed brain 
power to control and shape conditions, in which the evil of 
the world has its source. And, if we can help people in 
these higher ranges of life, — help them to be men and to 
be women, — we make them capable of feeding, clothing, 



Helping 99 

and sheltering themselves, and doing this not by the week or 
month, but by the year and through life. 

If we can carry the work higher still, if we can bring the 
people to feel that they are, indeed, the children of God, 
intended to be developed into his likeness, if we can make 
them feel that they are souls, that they have a grander des- 
tiny than that which can be regarded as success or failure in 
the outer affairs of this life, then we make them supreme 
masters over their destiny; we make them capable of bear- 
ing failure, if that must come ; we make them capable of 
wisely wielding success, if it can be attained. 

And here note how grandly comes in that saying of 
Jesus. How wise was the philosophy of it as well as pro- 
found its spiritual significance ; how direct, too, in its sugges- 
tion, though we do not as yet half measure its meaning ! 
He said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness, and all these lower things, — care of the body, what to 
eat, what to wear, what our shelter shall be, — all these 
things shall be added. In other words, if people are right in 
the higher realm, then these lower things shall take care of 
themselves. But you cannot permanently help people con- 
cerning these lower things by concentrating all your help 
upon them. 

Now turn to our third and last division. I wish to con- 
sider a few of the difficulties that face us as we try to make 
ourselves helpers to our fellows. 

Consider it first on this lower plane of helping the physi- 
cal needs of the world. It is undoubtedly true that in the 
past in many parts of Europe, under the teaching of the 
popular Christianity of the time, indiscriminate charity has 
been considered one of the highest and greatest virtues. It 
has been argued gravely by some that it would not be a 
good thing to have all the evils of the world cured, because 



ioo Helps for Daily Living 

in that case it would take away the opportunity for just this 
spiritual culture on the part of the helpers. It is true that 
this matter has been carried to an excess that has resulted 
in grave evils. Pauperism has been cultivated. Indiscrimi- 
nate charity always cultivates pauperism \ and people have 
waked up now and then to find that, instead of really curing 
the wants, really alleviating the needs of the world, they have 
been adding to them by the indiscriminate, thoughtless way 
in which they have been giving. One of the noblest women 
of this country — a woman of immense wealth, and who 
through a series of years gave away money by the thousands 
— stopped at last to consider the results of what she had 
been doing, and published her confession, saying that she 
had become convinced that she had done more harm in the 
way in which she had been giving than she had done good. 
I do not undertake to pass upon her judgment as to whether 
it was true or not ; but it undoubtedly is true in many cases 
that pauperism has been sheltered and nursed instead of 
diminished by large numbers of people who have looked 
over the world and wondered how they should help. 

A business man driven with his work, all the time absorbed 
in it, says, I have no time to look up this case of need. I 
have no time to investigate whether they are worthy. And 
I have known men who have left a regular order with their 
book-keepers to give about so much to every applicant as the 
easiest way to be done with it. I say that this has become a 
difficulty, that a great many men are asking where they shall 
put their money, or how they shall feel sure that they are 
really helping the world. Sometimes they become discour- 
aged ; and, feeling the difficulties to be so great, they " shut 
down," as they say, and refuse to give altogether. But this 
will never do. Because the principle of giving has been 
abused in the past, that cannot release us from the necessity 



Helping 101 

of helping those who are struggling, who have fallen behind, 
who have become stragglers in the grand army of humanity 
on the march. Because it is difficult to help, we are not 
thereby released from duty. Indeed, I fancy it might be 
better for us if we were willing to devote a little less time to 
the accumulation and a little more, if we have not enough, 
to finding out what are the real cases of need and how they 
may be alleviated. It is good work to create a reservoir; 
but it is a grander thing to use the water accumulated in the 
reservoir for the fertilization of the fields of the world. Bet- 
ter have a little less in the reservoir, and have what is there 
used, than simply to accumulate, having no end in view ex- 
cept stagnation or the bursting of the barriers at last to the 
devastating of society, or some tremendous social upheaval 
under the impulse of the sense of injustice. We must help, 
we must take time to help, we must find out how to help, if 
we would be humane ; but, until we can help in the higher 
ranges of life, we must find out how to alleviate day by day. 
We cannot let some poor woman starve in the garret, with 
her white and pinched face, and her starving baby at her 
breast, while we seek out the far-off cause of suffering, and 
work changes that will make the world happy in a thousand 
years. We must help as we go, not forgetting as we go on 
the higher and more far-reaching work which shall bring 
about the permanent results. 

And, when we come to this matter of helping in the intel- 
lectual range, we find perhaps still greater difficulties. The 
man who sets himself up to teach others of course assumes 
that they are wrong, and that he is right ; and people resent 
that attitude. You begin to argue with a man in regard to 
his political opinions, his social ideas, or his religious beliefs, 
and the chances are that ninety-nine times out of a hundred 
you put him at once in a position of antagonism. He resents 



102 Helps for Daily Living 

it that you assume that you are right, and that you are com- 
petent to teach him something better than he knows already. 
There is, then, this feeling of antagonism, even when it is 
not expressed. 

Then one of the grave evils of the world, as I think, is 
that people so misuse and misapply the idea of loyalty. I 
know people, for example, who are ready bitterly to fling 
sharp and hard words at a man — for what? Because he 
has changed his political ideas. They say he has become a 
traitor to his party, be he Democratic, Republican, or what 
not. Traitor to his party ! When did a man, when he was 
worthy to be called a man, pledge himself to eternal alle- 
giance to any party ? There is only one thing that a man 
can afford to pledge changeless allegiance to, and that is 
truth. And if one of your fellow-men makes up his mind 
that on any political or social problem or religious idea he 
has been mistaken, and changes his opinions out of regard 
for what he is convinced is true, no matter whether you 
agree with him or not, pay him the honor of believing him to 
be an honest man, and of being willing to appear inconsist- 
ent, if need be, for the sake of this higher loyalty. 

Then there is another difficulty in the way of helping peo- 
ple out of false ideas, and this particularly in the realm of 
religious thought. I know how I was trained in the theo- 
logical seminary. I do not know that a word was ever 
spoken to me about untrammelled search for truth and 
simply defending that. I spent three years in being told 
that a certain set of ideas constituted the truth, and that I 
was to fight for that against all comers. This is the way 
people are trained in religion. They are taught that the 
ideas that their fathers and their teachers held are God's 
truth, and that they are to fight for and defend those ideas. 
And the boy who changes his opinions stands the chance of 



Helping 103 

being spoken of as dishonoring his father because he wants 
to learn something that his father did not know. 

There is another thought closely linked with this. People 
have been taught by the year that it was wrong, wicked, a 
sin against God, to doubt in matters of religion, to change 
their ideas. So it is against all these obstacles that we work 
when we try to help people in the higher ranges of their 
thought. 

And there is a higher range still than those I have indi- 
cated; and that is the realm of the spirit, the realm of char- 
acter, of thought, feeling, of the ideal. How can we help 
there? Here it is perhaps even more difficult than any- 
where else. And we become most easily discouraged here, 
because there is no way by which we can find out how much 
we have done or whether we have done anything. If you 
give a hungry man food, there is some definite measurement 
of what you have accomplished. If you give a naked person 
clothing, you can see what you have done. If you teach a 
person a lesson, and he accepts it as true, you can measure 
that. But, if you make a man nobler, finer, sweeter, higher 
in his aspirations, nobler in his impulses and the motives of 
his life, how are you to measure that ? How are you to be 
sure that you have accomplished it ? You cannot measure it 
by the square yard, you cannot weigh it by the pound, you 
cannot see it, you cannot feel it. Yet this is the most im- 
portant of all. How do we help here? Again, not in the 
ways that are efficient on the lower plane ; for help in the 
spiritual range is almost entirely by being. We help by what 
we are. For, in the long run, no man and no woman can con- 
ceal character. It tells, it influences. We carry an atmos- 
phere that impinges upon the spiritual atmosphere of all those 
with whom we come in contact. We repel, we know not 
how. We attract, we know not how, We depress, we know 



104 Helps for Daily Living 

not how. We lift, we know not how. The only safety is in 
being every day noble, true, fine, sweet, grand in character. 
And let us remember in this higher range of life we cannot 
go through the world without influence. We do hurt or we 
do help every day of our lives. Science has taught us at 
last that if the shadow of a leaf is cast by the sun against 
the surface of a stone wall it leaves its impress, and the 
wall is never again what it was before. And we cast our 
shadow across the pathway of hundreds and thousands ; and 
consciously or unconsciously, merely by what we are, we 
change the course, depress, or lift the level of human lives. 
Take this for a warning, and ever be on your guard. Take 
it for comfort, and do not be easily discouraged. 

Our unconscious influence is beautifully expressed in the 
following lines by Emerson in his poem " Each and All " : — 

" Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown 
Of thee from the hill-top looking down ; 
The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 
Deems not that great Napoleon 
Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height ; 
Nor knowest thou what argument 
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent." 

One more illustration I wish to give you in closing, carry- 
ing its own and an added lesson. I came across, the other 
day, in a little paper published in Chicago, an article written 
by a woman whose name is well known in some parts of the 
country, at least. At the beginning of the article, she quotes 
a poem written by a man who was an officer in the army, 
Colonel Richard Realf, — a poem I cannot quote, but mighty 
in its sweep and inspiring in its reach. This lady says it 



Helping 105 

was fifteen years ago that she first read this poem, and that 
it changed her whole life. She said it was a conversion : it 
was almost like the birth of her soul to a new world that had 
opened to her. A little while ago, — she had never seen and 
never written a word to this man, — she learned that he had 
committed suicide, broken-hearted and discouraged. Among 
his effects was found another poem, written the day before 
his death, the first verse of which I will read to you : — 

"When 

For me the end has come, and I am dead, 
And little, voluble, chattering daws of men 

Peck at me curiously, let it then be said, 
By some one brave enough to speak the truth, 

1 Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong.' 
Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth 

To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song 
And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart, 

He wrought for liberty, till his own wound 
(He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art 

Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned, 
And sank there, where you see him lying now, 

With that word ' Failure ' written on his brow." 



The lady goes on to say that " here was a life one of 
whose grand songs had revolutionized my own, who dies 
having written as his epitaph the word ' failure' ; and who 
knows how many more lives he had inspired without know- 
ing it ? " And she raises the question, " Perhaps, if I had 
written him what he had done for me, it might have given 
him courage to bear the struggle and live on yet for the 
world that he had so helped." And then she closes with 
this other little verse, the authorship of which I do not 
know : — 



106 Helps for Daily Living 

" For hearts, dear love, such seedlings are 
That need so little, — ah, so less 
Than little on this earth, — to bear 
The sun-sweet blossom, happiness ; 
And sing — those dying hearts that come 
To go — their swan song, flying home, — 
A touch, a tender tone, no more, 
A face that lingers at the door 
To turn and smile, a fond word said, 
A kiss, — these things make heaven ; and yet 
We do neglect, refuse, forget 
To give that little ere 'tis fled, — 

Ah me ! ah me ! — 
And sad hearts go uncomforted." 

Let us remember, then, however weak we are, however 
poor or commonplace our lives, however obscure, that by- 
just being something grand we, of necessity, do help some- 
body; that our lives are a part of that great song that shall 
usher in the triumph of the world. And, if people do 
help you, since there is no sure way of their rinding it out, 
tell them so, and give them courage and strength that they 
may bear up and go on helping still to the end. 



CONFLICTS OF CONSCIENCE. 



I suppose there is hardly a conceivable action, belief, or 
course of conduct that has not sometime and somewhere in 
the history of the world been conscientiously approved and 
as conscientiously condemned. People have conscientiously 
upheld and attempted to spread a certain system of religion ; 
others have as conscientiously opposed it and attempted its 
overthrow. People have conscientiously supported certain 
forms of government ; others have as conscientiously labored 
to undermine those forms. Fathers and mothers have con- 
scientiously cared for, tended, and trained their little chil- 
dren ; other fathers and mothers have as conscientiously put 
them to death. Children have conscientiously watched over 
and endeavored to comfort the declining years of their aged 
parents ; other children have as conscientiously felt bound to 
take away their lives when they had reached a certain age, 
to prevent them from becoming helpless and dependent. So 
there is hardly a deed commonly looked on to-day as a 
crime, which men somewhere else have not regarded as 
a virtue, possibly even as part of a divinely-given system of 
religious service and worship. 

We find then, as we look over the world, this contradiction 
of consciences, — not only the contradiction of one age by its 
successor, but the contradiction of different classes and races 
belonging to the same age. And yet, when I was a child, — 



108 Helps for Daily Living 

and I presume the same is true of most of you, — I was 
taught to regard my conscience as a sort of special faculty, 
partly, if not wholly, divine, which had been given me for the 
express purpose of guiding my steps and telling me what was 
right and what was wrong. My mother, from whom I sup- 
pose I imbibed these ideas, believed at that time most con- 
scientiously in eternal punishment, though she has long since 
outgrown that belief. But it troubled me even then, and it 
was a problem too hard for me to solve, to note the fact that 
her most intimate personal friend as conscientiously disbe- 
lieved this doctrine. And yet, in this particular case, these 
apparently clashing facts did not interfere with the most lov- 
ing and tender friendship. It has been taught, I think, as 
one of the commonest ideas of religion in the past that con- 
science was the voice of God in the soul, that it always spoke 
with at least a semi-divine authority, and that, whatever the 
consequence, it was not to be disregarded. 

And yet even those who have taught this doctrine have 
been compelled by the facts to recognize these apparent in- 
consistencies, these conflicts and contradictions ; and what 
has been the result on the part of those who have thought 
about it ? It is a common teaching on the part of the Ortho- 
dox Church to tell us that this broken and inconsistent con- 
dition of conscience has been brought about by the fall of 
man, which was supposed to have disturbed and injured so 
many of our human faculties. Conscience, which would 
have been an eternal and safe guide, became, after that, only 
a broken light. It became like the compass needle deflected 
from the true north by the attraction of outside and disturb- 
ing forces of one kind or another. 

On the part of others, — and this I take it is the commoner 
state of mind and the one, perhaps, in some points the most 
to be regretted, — on the part of others, this apparent con- 



Conflicts of Conscience 1 09 

fusion and contradiction have produced this effect : they 
have come to question whether there be any eternal, un- 
changing right, whether there be any divine authority of con- 
science left. I have been told by people, by personal 
friends, without perhaps meaning to express a settled con- 
viction, but as a query, that they were half inclined to think 
that right and wrong were largely matters of convention. 
That which is thought to be right in Turkey is wrong in Mas- 
sachusetts \ that which in Central Africa does not disturb 
the conscience of anybody is simply shocking and unbear- 
able to a higher type of civilization. People are disturbed, 
then, over the question whether their ideas of right and 
wrong, that which they call conscience, be not, after all, mat- 
ters of convention and inheritance, of habit, of training, of 
special teaching, the result of governmental interference, of 
social ideas and customs. 

It seems to me well, then, for us to see if we can run a 
line of light through this darkness ; to see if we can find a 
clew that shall lead us out of the apparent labyrinth into 
clear daylight. I do not think it will be very difficult to find. 

If we study a little carefully the origin and the growth of 
conscience and the ideas of right and wrong, we shall be 
able to note that there is an element in it that is permanent, 
changeless, as eternal as God, and that there is also this ele- 
ment of variability and change. What that means, however, 
is simply this : the principle does not change, has never 
changed from the rudest beginnings of civilization until 
now; and it cannot possibly be conceived of as changing. 
The principle abides. It is only the application, the ques- 
tion as to the particular case, that disturbs and unsettles. 

Let us, then, note for a little — so much as is necessary for 
our present purpose — the origin and the growth of con- 
science, that we may find out what is permanent and what 
is changeable in it. 



no Helps for Daily Living 

If you could conceive of a man as living alone on some 
island in the ocean, as never, his whole life long, coming 
into any sort of personal relation with anybody else, you 
would see at once that nearly all moral questions for him 
would be in abeyance. Most of those things that we speak 
of as right and wrong would be non-existent to him. He 
could not commit any crime, and he could be guilty of very 
few vices. He could not harm anybody, because he could 
not help anybody. He might indeed lower the type and 
character of his own personal life which he had inherited as 
the result of civilization. He might degrade his own nature, 
he might falsify the spiritual relation which ought to exist 
between his soul and his God ; but he could do no harm to 
any other man, woman, or child on earth. 

This hints at the fact which is at the root of all our discus- 
sion, that conscience is born of the fact of society. Con, scio, 
to know with, to be conscious of the relations in which you 
stand to somebody else : this is the source and this hints 
the meaning of conscience. It ought not to seem strange to 
us — indeed, it ought to bind us only the more tenderly to 
the lower forms of life beneath us, because it hints the fact 
that life from first to last, from lowest to highest, is all one — 
to know that we can trace the beginnings of certain moral 
ideas and actions even among the lower animals, among 
dogs and horses and birds, among those who live in groups, 
so that they can help or hurt each other, so that they can 
communicate with each other, so that they can feel for each 
other. Here you find some rudimentary appearances of 
what we call morality among men. But human morality is 
born when two people look each other in the face and rec- 
ognize the fact that here are two independent personalities. 
When I am able to put myself in the place of another by the 
power of imaginative sympathy, when I am able to say, 



Conflicts of Conscience 1 1 1 

There is a person who can be hurt as I can be hurt, who 
can be helped as I can be helped, who can feel joy and can 
feel pain as I feel joy and pain, and who has the same right 
naturally to the good of life that I have, then conscience is 
born. In this fact of society, then, of personal relationship, 
the consciousness of the relationship of one person to an- 
other, our human conscience is born. 

But you will note that of necessity the reach of this con- 
science is limited by the range of the imaginative sympathy. 
This little conscience, this family conscience, — a conscience 
that extends to the few about you and that you think of as 
specially a part of your own life, — broadens until it is a 
tribal conscience ; and men and women recognize the rights 
and duties within the limits of the tribe, but have no feeling, 
no imaginative sympathy, concerning the sufferings of those 
beyond the tribal limits. Then there comes to be a national 
conscience. At last a human conscience is beginning to 
be born, though it is comparatively feeble as yet. But the 
ideal conscience will not stop its development even there. 
There was a foregleam of this newer and tenderer advance 
in that beautiful though trite saying of the poet Cowper, — 

" I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm." 

The perfect conscience will include all sentient beings, — 
whatever can enjoy, whatever can suffer. 

A poetic and imaginative sympathy may take, I think, an- 
other step. There are men even now who have a conscience 
towards those forms of life that we do not think of ordinarily 
as sentient. They would not needlessly mar or harm a 
beautiful tree or flower. They feel the sense of a common 
life that thrills through the universe from highest to lowest, 



H2 Helps for Daily Living 

from centre to circumference, embracing all in one broad 
sympathy. 

Conscience, then, is the recognition of the rights and the 
duties springing out of these relationships. And what we 
may perhaps for distinction call a natural conscience — a 
conscience that some day perhaps the earth will attain, 
though very far from it yet — will recognize only those nat- 
ural, those inherent, those necessary laws of cause and effect 
on which human welfare and happiness depend. 

I have hinted to you that this sense of right and wrong 
springs out of our imaginative sympathy concerning the 
relationships in which we stand to others. We have learned 
to think of as right all those courses of conduct which tend 
to make men better, which tend to increase their general 
welfare. Wrong is the opposite course, — those things that 
take away something from the general welfare and happiness 
of mankind. You will note, then, that here begins to dawn 
the standard, the permanent, the eternal part of conscience. 
Here is the principle : whatever helps men is right ; what- 
ever hurts men is wrong. And the voice of God in the soul 
is that which whispers eternally to you and to me, Do that 
which helps men, refrain from that which hurts them. This 
is the eternal part, the changeless principle. 

But you will notice that of necessity there will be perpet- 
ually varying judgments as to what course of conduct will 
help men and what will hurt them. I have just said that, if 
the world ever attains a perfectly natural conscience, it will 
be guided entirely by the natural laws of cause and effect. 
It will be governed by those things which are changeless, 
essential, eternal. But I need to hint to you, because this 
will explain many of the contradictions and conflicts, certain 
other forces that come in to modify and mould the judg- 
ments of men. For example, people come to believe in a 



Conflicts of Conscience 113 

certain kind of God, and they believe that he has issued 
certain commands. He tells them that such and such 
things they may be permitted to eat, that such and such 
things are prohibited, that such and such days are to be 
devoted to certain uses, and other days are free, when they 
can do as they please. He commands the reading of certain 
books. He commands the performance of certain sacrifices, 
the celebration of certain ceremonies. There are certain 
doctrines which they must believe, and there are certain 
others which they must reject. These, you see, are arbi- 
trary, outside commands. They do not stand in any natural 
causal relation to anybody's happiness or anybody's misery ; 
but if people believe there is such a God, who has issued 
such commands, and that he is powerful enough to execute 
them, and that he will execute them, why, then, of course, 
you will see at once that it becomes a matter of conscience 
with them to regard these commands, because the welfare of 
humanity depends on their being obeyed. But here is an- 
other people, who have an entirely different idea of God, who 
have another revelation, another set of commands ; and of 
course they are in conflict with these first, — conscientiously 
so. Both of them are earnest, but each is antagonizing the 
other. 

Not only do these religious ideas come in to modify or 
change the growth of conscience, but governmental ideas as 
well. Persons are born under a despotism, a monarchy, or 
a republican form of government ; and they come to believe 
that the welfare of men is bound up with the permanence of 
this type of government, so they conscientiously fight for it. 
Somebody else believes that the welfare of man depends on 
entirely another kind of political organization, so he fights 
for that. 

Not only that, but there are social ideas and customs that 



114 Helps for Daily Living 

dominate us. In one country, a certain set of social customs 
has become so large a part of the air the people breathe 
that they can hardly imagine anybody's being free from 
them. They become a part of their notions of right and 
wrong, and seem as if essential parts of life itself. Other 
persons are trained in another kind of society, and so an- 
other set of social customs and ideas becomes a part of their 
conscience. You see, then, how the practical judgment of 
men as to what is right and what is wrong is subject to per- 
petual modification, flux, and change. But all the time — 
do not lose sight of this ; — the eternal, the permanent sense 
of obligation to do that which people believe is for the good 
of mankind abides. 

I wish now to make the matter a little more concrete and 
clear, and show to you how out of these conflicts of con- 
science come the great tragedies of the world ; so I suggest 
to you a few historic illustrations. Of course, I need no 
more than mention the fact to you that there is of necessity 
a contradiction, a conflict, between the consciences of a 
lower grade of human civilization and the consciences of a 
higher grade. There was a time in the history of the world 
when slavery was a good, a blessing. It was the next step in 
advance of the human army of progress. It was the almost 
universal custom, up to a certain time in the history of the 
world, for armies to put to death indiscriminately all their 
captives. They had not risen to the grade of civilization in 
which it was safe for them to let them go. They would lose 
the fruits of their victory if they did. But there came a time 
when nations grew strong and had a more compact organiza- 
tion. And so, instead of putting their captives to death, they 
held them in captivity, made slaves of them, — not a very 
pleasant condition ; but, considering that this slavery many 
times was not a permanency, that there were opportunities 



Conflicts of Conscience 115 

and the hope of escape, it was something more humane than 
indiscriminate slaughter. So slavery was once right. 

By the same law of reasoning, you would be able to say 
that there was a time when polygamy was right. It repre- 
sented a higher step in the social order than that which pre- 
ceded it. We have outgrown it, and it is now wrong. We 
have found a better way : therefore, that which was relatively 
good becomes in our higher life a positive evil. 

Let us now take one of the best known illustrations in 
history, though perhaps it is not often used to illustrate this 
particular point, — the case of Socrates in Athens. We are 
accustomed, perhaps, to think somewhat bitterly of the 
people who forced the fatal hemlock to the lips of the old 
philosopher ; and yet there is no sort of question that they 
were as conscientious, as earnest, — according to their light, 
— as devoted to the welfare of Athens, as was Socrates him- 
self. Indeed, what were the charges that men preferred 
against him ? He was charged with perverting the religion 
of the country, vitiating the character and the thoughts of 
the young people of the city. From the stand-point of those 
who believed in the older religion, this was just what he was 
doing. How did he justify himself ? He had caught a 
glimpse of the larger, higher truth, — a truth that unthroned 
the old gods of Olympus, and placed a grander God in the 
heaven of the soul. He had caught a glimpse of a larger, 
broader, finer humanity, and he knew right well the risk he 
was taking ; but he believed that the result would make the 
risk quite worth the while. So he represented the larger, 
broader, finer, higher conscience that was coming, and had 
of necessity to be in antagonism to the older and lower con- 
science. 

Almost precisely similar is the illustration of what has 
taken place here, in what we have called the modern Athens. 



n6 Helps for Daily Living 

Take the relation in which Theodore Parker stood to his 
times. We may vilify as much as we please the defenders of 
slavery in that day, we may vilify as much as we please the 
men who in their prayer-meetings pleaded with the Almighty 
to destroy the work of the great leader ; but, if we are fair, if 
we are just to history, we must recognize the fact that these 
men were religiously earnest. They were devoted to what 
they believed to be the will of God and the welfare of man. 
It was only one of those tragedies that of necessity are born 
out of the conflict and struggle which means the rebirth of 
civilization. Parker saw the higher, the grander truth both 
in religion and as related to the brotherhood of humanity ; 
and he stood for it and fought for it with a heroism that has 
given him a name for all time. But the others were as con- 
scientious as he. 

There are, then, these conflicts which spring out of every 
step taken in progress, the old conscience fighting against 
the new conscience that is the foregleam and prophecy of 
the new age. 

A similar thing comes in the experience of every man and 
woman, if he or she grows. Those of you who have been 
trained in one set of ideas and have been taken out of them 
into what you believe to be a higher and better thought have 
had this same kind of battle in your own souls. You have 
caught a glimpse of a finer and higher truth ; and this con- 
science, which you believe to be the voice of God, perhaps, 
has smitten and seared your soul as with the touch of light- 
ning. 

I remember the first time that I ever read an argument 
against one of the essential doctrines in which I had been 
trained. It was written by Dr. Bellows. My heart leaped 
to it with a wish, at any rate, that it might be true. And 
then for days and weeks my conscience lashed me with the 



Conflicts of Conscience 117 

thought that I was proving myself false to God and his 
truth, that I was allowing my desires to interfere with the 
acceptance of the infallible truth. I regarded it as a pos- 
sible temptation of the evil one. And so for weeks, months, 
and years the fight went on, rending and tearing my soul, as 
the New Testament tells us they were torn out of whom the 
evil spirits were cast. This was conscience fighting against 
conscience. There was no change in the voice that whis- 
pered, Do right; but there was a battle over the practical 
question as to which way the right lay. 

Then there is another kind of conflict that I wish to note, 
so as to suggest how broad the field is. There are certain 
persons who are very conscientious as to which of two duties 
they shall perform. They recognize the fact that it is not 
possible to perform both of them ; but which ? They have 
no question as to whether they ought to do right ; but it be- 
comes a grievous problem to them to settle which of the two 
irreconcilable courses is right. So sometimes they are bur- 
dened after having decided according to the best light they 
could discover. Even then conscience will whip them for 
the neglect of that which they could not do. So we are 
sometimes victims of most irrational consciences. Learn, 
then, that it is not enough for you to say, I am conscientious, 
it is not enough for somebody to say, I was conscientious 
about it. A wrong-headed conscience is sometimes the very 
worst thing to deal with on earth, because, believing it rep- 
resents eternal truth, it adds this conviction to the personal 
obstinacy of the man who is thus over-conscientious. 

Now, at the close, I wish to note a few practical suggestions 
as to how we shall deal with these cases of conscience as 
they come up day by day. 

In the first place, — and do not suspect me of any loose- 
ness of thinking in this direction, — on the peril of your soul 



\i8 Helps for Daily Living 

be sure that you obey, for the time being, your conscience. 
Jn the first place, you would better do wrong conscientiously 
than do right against your conscience. For he who pur- 
posely violates his conviction of right demoralizes and dev- 
astates his own soul. For the time being, then, follow your 
conviction of duty, whichever way it leads. 

Second, in the light of what I have hinted this morning, 
study the facts as to the evolution of conscience, and learn 
to draw the distinction between the conviction that it is the 
voice of God bidding you do right as an authority never to 
be escaped and an entirely different thing, your own judg- 
ment as to what is right and best in a given set of circum- 
stances. Remember that of necessity, in a growing world, 
there must be these conflicts and contradictions of opinion 
as to cases of conscience, as to what is right and what is 
wrong. 

And so, in the third place, remember that your conscience, 
quite as much as any other part of your nature, is something 
to be educated, something to be trained. You will not 
change, you cannot change, the sense of obligation to do 
right ; but it does not follow at all that your conviction as 
to what is right to-day or to-morrow is a sound and true con- 
viction. That is simply and purely a matter of judgment, 
concerning which you may be as mistaken as concerning any 
other matter whatsoever. Your convictions as to what is 
right and wrong concerning religion, concerning your politi- 
cal action, in your business life, in all the relations in which 
you stand to your fellow-men, — where did they come from ? 
Some of them you have inherited. Some of them have come 
to you as the result of teaching, of education. Some of 
them have been impressed upon you by your social surround- 
ings and the custom of the city or town in which you live. 
Some of them have grown, perhaps, out of a prejudice or 



Conflicts of Conscience 119 

even a personal dislike. But, whatever the source, you will 
discover it is anything but infallible. In other words, your 
judgment as to matters of right and wrong is just as infalli- 
ble and just as fallible as your judgment about anything 
else. And, since this concerns the great question of the 
welfare and happiness of men, it is the one thing of all 
others concerning which you ought to be least bigoted, least 
set, least prejudiced. You should hold your judgment 
always open to revision, be always ready to find out as to 
whether the opinions you hold or the courses of action you 
are following are helping or hurting mankind ; for the one 
thing that is binding on you is not truth to your conviction 
simply, but being sure that your convictions are true. The 
one thing we ought to be concerned about is the considera- 
tion of the welfare of our fellow-men. 

Try, then, day by day, to find out whether your opinions, 
your actions, are really helping the world or hurting it, and 
remember that the one obligation you are under is to help, 
and not to hurt. You are under no obligation to be con- 
sistent. You are under no obligation to hold the same 
opinion now that you held last year. You are under no 
obligation to continue doing a thing to-day because you 
thought it was right yesterday. You are under no obliga- 
tion except to learn to do right ; and, in order that you may 
do that, you must use all the light you can get from any 
source in heaven or earth to help you to know what the 
right is. 

And, in regard to this conflict between duties that appear 
to be irreconcilable, I would not have you carry a conscience 
that shall burden and depress. I have known people who 
were uncomfortable all their lives, and who had perhaps a 
little touch or taint of pride about it, because they thought 
there was merit in being so very conscientious. But a con- 



120 Helps for Daily Living 

science that makes you uncomfortable, miserable, and hurts 
and destroys the happiness of those about you, is not a good, 
it is an evil. Do not allow yourselves to think you are virt- 
uous because you can think of yourselves as very conscien- 
tious. Perhaps you would better be even less conscientious 
in that sense. The one thing to aim at is to help the world. 
Do not, then, allow your souls to be burdened, if, after hav- 
ing decided according to the best light you had, you are 
haunted by a fear, a suggestion, that something has not been 
done. If you have done what you could, you have done all. 
Will the time ever come when these conflicts and contradic- 
tions will be done away ? Not in this millennium nor in the 
next, perhaps never, because in a world that is growing there 
must be this contradiction between the higher and the lower. 
But the conflict can be reduced to its lowest terms if the 
time ever comes when the world is wise enough to draw a 
rigid line of demarcation between the conventional con- 
science and the natural conscience. When we come to iden- 
tify the real God and the real laws of God with the inherent 
natural laws of human life, human development, and human 
happiness, and when we are ready to relegate prejudices and 
arbitrary convictions, whether religious, political, or social, to 
their own place, then very largely, if not entirely, the con- 
flicts of conscience will become a thing of the past. 



LIVING BY THE DAY. 



At the first look, this will seem to you a very simple 
theme, — "Living by the Day"; and I do not propose to 
offer you any new, startling, or profound thoughts on the 
subject, but only such considerations as you are already 
more or less familiar with. And yet, if I could only succeed 
in persuading people to live by the day, how many burdens 
should I lift off from human shoulders ! how should I add to 
the sum of the world's happiness ! what an enormous in- 
crease there would be in the amount of the world's effective 
work, for so much is lost by memory and by dream ! 

And yet, says a friend, if you could only teach me to live 
by the day ! I see the meaning of it, but the task is too 
difficult. How can I live by the day, when the ideals of my 
life are shattered and lie in fragments round my feet ; when, 
as I look towards the morrow, I see myself passing under a 
cloud instead of into sunshine ; when I see a future from 
which I would be glad to escape even by lying down to my 
last sleep ? 

Or another says : Why ask me to live by the day ? To-day 
is sad and sorrowful ; but I can escape into the past and 
find an hour of brightness, where I can perhaps forget the 
pressing evils of the present. Or I hope for something better 
to-morrow, or next week, or next year. The conditions of 
things are going to be changed. May I not enjoy at least 
the illusion of happiness, if happiness itself may not be 
found ? 



122 Helps for Daily Living 

And some one else may suggest: Why is it that man is the 
inhabitant of three worlds instead of one, if he is to live 
only in one ? Why is it that we are endowed with these mar- 
vellous faculties of memory and of anticipation, if we are not 
to exercise them ? 

All these questions, these criticisms, are pertinent, they 
are real ; and I shall have nothing to say by way of discredit- 
ing any of them. And yet I shall insist strongly upon the 
idea that the true way to live is to live in concentrating 
thought, intention, purpose, all our powers, on the present 
day. 

It is indeed true that there is this wonderful world of 
memory and this other wonderful world of anticipation and 
hope ; and they have their uses without contradicting any of 
the principles that underlie the duty of living by the day. 

Let me, at the outset, note how this matter of memory and 
of hope, instead of interfering with living by the day, may 
even lend us their assistance. I do not mean, for example, 
that we are not to find the happiness of life that comes to 
us from remembering the past. It is a wonderful power. 
Where is this past ? Where is this world of the things that 
we remember, — the yesterdays, the last years, the centuries 
that are gone ? Where are they ? Somewhere stored up in 
brain, somewhere inaccessible to these minds of ours, that 
are as mysterious and inexplicable as is the Infinite Mind 
itself. And, indeed, we have a right to unlock the doors and 
enter these chambers of memory, and take comfort and joy 
and peace in what we can find there. The mother, for ex- 
ample, worn out with the care of the children, the burden of 
the household, the perplexities of life, the unsolved problems 
and the problems that seem unsolvable, — shall she not forget 
them a little, and go back and live over her girlhood time, 
the time when she was free, before there were any con- 



Living by the Day 123 

scious tasks, any burdens more serious than the lesson that 
was a little hard to learn ? Shall she not walk in that re- 
membered sunshine, through those remembered fields, under 
those remembered skies, and be comforted and made strong? 

And the man bowed under the burden of his mid-life 
tasks, — shall he, too, not go back? How many sweet hours 
come to me through this process of memory, — the playmates 
of the olden time, the river shimmering under the sunlight, 
losing itself far up northward among the hills, the song of 
the bobolink in the spring, the picture of the clouds floating 
overhead, the bursting of the apple-blooms, — these bright, 
sunny hours, these pictures that we can recall, how dear they 
are to us, how full of comfort and of peace ! 

And then we keep as treasures in this way all the things 
that have been ours. We can still climb the Alps, seeing the 
lake at our feet, and the snow peaks against that wonderful 
blue. We can still walk through the galleries, seeing the 
marvellous works of art, the pictures and the statuary. We 
are still in the cathedral of St. Peter's, not only awed by 
the wonder of the architecture that has heaved such a dome 
into the air, but listening to the monotonous chant of the 
priests, or the grand swelling of the organ music and the 
sweetness of the choral voices. All these things are ours, 
— ours to use, ours to rejoice in, — for our comfort, our in- 
spiration, and our help. 

Then we have a right also to anticipate and enjoy the 
pleasures of hope as well as the pleasures of memory. A 
man that is burdened and worried with the task that he has 
only half finished, shall he not rest himself for a moment by 
thinking of the satisfaction that shall come to him when it is 
done ? and shall he not attain an added power and steadier 
nerve and stronger grasp of his task in the sense of this 
coming satisfaction ? Shall not the man who is toiling across 



124 Helps for Daily Living 

desert sands, overpowered by the heat, blinded with the 
brightness, — shall he not anticipate how at last, at evening, 
he may reach an oasis, and sit under the palms and see the 
cool water at his feet ? Shall we not have all these inspira- 
tions and comforts and helps that come to us through antici- 
pation as well as memory ? 

I wish to refer for a moment to other uses of the past and 
the future that are legitimately ours. The man is not wise 
who does not use the past not merely for comfort and pleas- 
ure, but for instruction. He has attempted certain things, 
and he has failed. He will not attempt those things under 
the same conditions again, if he be wise. One of our humor- 
ists has said that every man makes mistakes, but only fools 
make the same mistake the second time. Here is the use 
that we ought to make of the past ; and this is true not only 
of the past individual life, but the past of the world, the past 
of society, the past of our political career. People are per- 
petually going astray, for the simple reason that they do not 
learn to keep in mind the lessons of the world's memory, its 
history. We are constantly making social experiments that 
in the very nature of things cannot succeed. We are con- 
stantly trying to solve political problems in ways that are 
impossible of accomplishment. We are constantly engaged 
in trying to bring about certain reforms in ways that are 
utterly impracticable. Why ? Because we do not remem- 
ber the lessons of the social and political attempts that the 
world has already made, because we are not familiar with 
history. As men are on their march, some one comes to a 
path that he thinks is open ; and he proclaims it as a grand 
discovery, and invites everybody to follow him into it, when, 
if he only knew the experience of the world in the years 
gone by, he would know that the same kind of road pre- 
cisely has been attempted over and over again, and that it 



Living by tJie Day 125 

is an impassable road, or, if passable, leads to no desirable 
result. We need, then, to use the past for instruction, the 
past of our own lives and the past of the world. 

Then there is another use of the future which is legiti- 
mate, not only using it for the pleasure it may bring us in 
the way of anticipated joys, but using it to give us courage 
and hope, using it because it nerves the arm, because it 
strengthens the heart, because it makes us more capable of 
accomplishing the work that is given us for the present hour. 
If we study wisely the history of the world's achievements 
in the past, we shall know that over and over again the 
grandest causes have met with check, have been delayed, 
have seemed to waver and threatened to fail, but that at 
last concentrated effort has accomplished the grand result 
that for years was attempted in vain. In the midst of our 
present effort, we are apt to become discouraged, to say this 
cause is making slow progress, that another is wavering and 
threatening to fall through ; and we are apt to lose heart, and 
to lose the strength of arm that we need for present effort, for- 
getting that this is God's world, that overhead and beneath 
and around us there is not only a plan, but the push of a 
mighty purpose, of which we are a part, and with which we 
can co-operate. Looking ahead in this spirit, in the light of 
these considerations, we can bear present burdens and reach 
out towards the attainment of those things that have so long 
eluded us. Here, then, are uses enough for the past and 
for the future, — uses in the way of pleasure and comfort, uses 
in the way of instruction and encouragement. 

But, granting all this, it still remains true, it seems to me, 
that it is the part of a rational man to remember that in one 
sense there is no past, there is no future, there never has 
been any past, and there never will be any future. What- 
ever of the past is vital is so much of it as lives in the at- 



126 Helps for Daily Living 

tainment of the present, — lives in the thought, feeling, the 
impulse of this hour. All the past that is real is here. 
It is a part of the now, and the future never has existed. 
We talk sometimes of the future world, of the future life. If 
there be a spirit world, if those we call dead are still alive, 
they are not living in the future any more than we are. 
They are living this instant, thinking, feeling, aspiring, and 
climbing towards the higher now. To-morrow, — where is it? 

" That golden time, — who's found it ? 
That ever sought to-morrow? 
Cluster all hopes around it, 
Without one touch of sorrow ? 

" Vain fancy ! Sing thy sonnet, 

And days from dreamland borrow, 
But sun ne'er shone upon it, — 
There never was to-morrow." 

The world's work, then, — all the work that ever was done, 
all the work that is being done, all the work that can be 
done, — must be done now. If we live till another sun rises 
after the shadow that we call night, we shall then say, 
" To-day," "Now." This flitting instant, then, is the only 
time that the world ever had or ever can have. The work 
of the world must be done now. And yet, instead of waking 
up to a realization of this, grasping the present opportunity, 
and trying to make this moment the grandest that it can 
possibly be, how many of us fritter it away ! How many of 
us waste it because of a fancied past or a fancied future ! 

I wish to indicate to you one or two of the influences 
under which this waste of the only time we have goes on. 

We waste it, because we remember a past failure. We 
sometimes think it is a virtue to throw away grand present 
opportunities, in order that we may show our sorrow and 
regret over something we did not do yesterday. But the 



Living by the Day 127 

only legitimate use for any past, however dark, however 
guilty, however wrong, is not to discourage us or to destroy 
the present moment, but only to teach us its lesson of fail- 
ure, and thrill us with the purpose of redeeming the time 
that is. It is not a virtue that mourns and sorrows and 
bewails the past, and so fritters away or loses the opportunity 
that is. 

Bunyan, in his inimitable, pictorial way, sets forth this 
great fact: that the despair growing out of past failure is 
the one most fatal thing in all the world, not only to happi- 
ness, but to action. For, when his pilgrim on his journey 
from the past to the future — from the City of Destruction 
to the Celestial City — falls into the hands of Giant De- 
spair, nothing is accomplished, no step is taken. Heart 
and hope and power, all are lost; and it is only when at 
last he feels in his bosom, and finds there the key called 
Hope, that he opens the gates to this Doubting Castle, and 
escapes into God's sunshine, and starts out on his journey 
once more. 

And there are influences from the future, from anticipa- 
tion, that interfere with our life-work. Men not only allow 
themselves to be discouraged by past failures, but they 
allow themselves to waste present opportunities in dreams of 
some better opportunity that they expect to come. I know 
a man — and he has plenty of companions in this — who 
was splendidly educated, — a man grandly endowed, a man 
of most unusual power. He is always going, going to do 
something. He is going to write a paper, he is going to 
write a book, he is going to achieve this, he is going to un- 
dertake that, — going, going forever to do something ; and 
yet the years go by — and they have been going by ever 
since I can remember in his case — and these things that 
were going to be done have never yet been even begun. 



128 Helps for Daily Living 

I know a case of another man who has thrown his life 
away because he had created so grand an ideal of what he 
was going to make of himself that he became discouraged 
at the prospect, and gave it up. He made great preparation 
for his life-work. After graduating at college in America, 
he went abroad, travelled, and studied at the universities 
there, listened to all the great professors, did everything he 
could to perfect and cultivate every faculty and power he 
possessed, until at last he had so grand a purpose that he 
made up his mind that he could never do anything that was 
worth while in the light of that purpose ; and he has been 
sitting still with folded hands ever since. 

So there are young men who need the lesson that this 
thought is fitted to give them. I know them in every direc- 
tion. I have been talking with some of them recently, — 
young men dissatisfied with where they are. They do not 
like their task. They do not like their present position : it 
is not the one they think they are fitted for. They feel in 
themselves powers, capacity, for a place larger than their 
present position. They are restless, dissatisfied. They 
are neglecting their duty : they are not doing good work 
where they are, for the simple reason that they fancy they 
could do so much better work if they were only somewhere 
else. They occupy a clerkship, perhaps. They do the work 
so poorly that their wages are not advanced ; and their em- 
ployer feels that he could probably engage some one without 
so much education, without so fine a natural endowment, at 
a less price, who would do as well as they are doing, and 
perhaps better. The way for any man to attain a larger 
place is to fill the present place so full that it runs over 
on every side. No matter how small it is, no matter how 
insignificant, no matter how unworthy you may think it of 
your brain power or culture, do the work in the place where 



Living by the Day 129 

you are so well that people will find out that it is not good 
economy to keep you in it because you have manifested the 
ability to do more than that. No matter if your dream is 
true, no matter if you are capable of filling the grandest 
position in the world, if you are not filling the one where 
you are satisfactorily, if you are not doing your present work 
faithfully, who would trust you in a larger place ? The for- 
mula is in that old statement in the Bible, " Because thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler 
over many things." Let us remember, then, that the work 
of life is to be done now and where we are, and that all the 
grand work that ever was done was done during the passing 
instant, and do not be discouraged by any past failure. Do 
not be so over-elated by any past success, either, as to feel 
yourself absolved from the present task, and do not lose 
yourself in any dreams of the future. The cases are not 
all in the story-books. It was not Alnaschar alone in the 
"Arabian Nights" who lost himself in such a dream of 
magnificent attainment in the coming time that he destroyed 
the very foundation on which his dream structure had been 
reared. People are doing it all about us. Learn, then, the 
lesson that Longfellow has to teach us in those simple words 
of his, so simple, so familiar, because so pertinent that they 
have often been quoted, and will be quoted again and 
again : — 

" We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 
But we have feet to scale and climb 
By slow degrees, by more and more, 
The cloudy summits of our time. 

" The mighty pyramids of stone 

That, wedge-like, cleave the desert airs, 
When nearer seen, and better known, 
Are but gigantic nights of stairs. 



130 Helps for Daily Living 

" The distant mountains, that uprear 
Their solid bastions to the skies, 
Are crossed by pathways, that appear 
As we to higher levels rise. 

" The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight ; 
But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night." 

And, then, two other stanzas from Longfellow will clinch 
this thought, — that the present hour is the one in which all 
achievements are accomplished: — 

" Build to-day, then, strong and sure, 
With a firm and ample base ; 
And ascending and secure 
Shall to-morrow find its place. 

" Thus alone can we attain 

To those turrets where the eye 
Sees the world as one vast plain 
And one boundless reach of sky." 

Not only is to-day's duty the only one we are ever called 
upon to perform, but we learn that all the happiness the 
world ever has or ever can have is the happiness of the 
passing moment. Yet is it not true that, in nine cases out 
of ten, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, people do not 
make the most of the present time for their own happiness 
or those around them, but fritter and waste their joys 
because of memory and of hope ? How many men will 
confess that they are happy ? How many women ? How 
many are there who do not expect some time to be happy ? 
And on what grounds do they expect it? As Pope, the 
poet, says, — 

" Man never is, but always to be blest." 



Living by the Day 131 

Take the case of the boy. Not quite contented with the 
playthings he has to-day, he longs for something else. He 
gets it : it is commonplace in five minutes, and he is not 
happy, because he desires something farther. Then this 
same boy is not quite happy with being a boy. He wishes 
to grow up and be a man. As soon as he is a man, he turns 
round and looks back and longs for his childhood once 
more, and thinks what a blessed, perfect, peaceful time 
that was. 

So how many people there are who are not quite content 
in the house that they at present occupy ! It does not meet 
their ideal. They do not care to put themselves out to 
better it, because they say it is no use to make themselves 
specially comfortable in this nest, — they do not propose to 
settle there. They will get along discontented, uncomfort- 
able, a little miserable, in anticipation of having everything 
to their mind. When they get the house they were expect- 
ing to occupy, they have perhaps lost the faculty of being 
contented and at peace. They forget that happiness is an 
internal disposition, and that it does not depend upon loca- 
tion. It does not depend on the kind of house-walls that 
surround us ; for there is many and many a person in this 
city, living in an elegant home, whose heart is sore, who is 
burdened and troubled with things that no costly house, no 
exquisite works of art, no fine furniture, can remove, proving 
— and this is the one point I have in mind — that happiness 
does not come from these things. There are persons in this 
city who would exchange their mansions for the humblest 
cotttage, if they could only have heart-wounds healed. 

Some years ago, when I was abroad, I met a man with his 
wife and daughter ; and his case illustrates the point I have 
in mind. They had wanted to go abroad for years, but the 
man never thought he could take the time or spend the 



132 Helps for Daily Living 

money. He imagined himself so important to his business 
that he thought the city would stop if he went away ; so he 
kept grinding at his work day after day, week after week, 
year after year, until at last he was completely broken down, 
and ordered abroad by his physician. And this dream of 
travel had turned into this kind of disappointment. He 
was wandering from city to city and bath to bath all over 
Europe, miserable, restless, unhappy, under the physician's 
orders, longing for the time when he should be restored suf- 
ficiently so that he could go home again. 

The great majority of business men do not take a vaca- 
tion. They cannot stop. They cannot leave their business. 
They have not taken time to develop any resources, so that 
they could enjoy anything outside of business routine. 
They are making money, and perpetually postponing the 
time when they are going to stop, going to rest, going to 
enjoy themselves, going to take an outing. They keep on, 
lured and deluded by this dream, until a touch of apoplexy 
or a break-down of the nervous system lays them on the 
shelf, with their dream unrealized, with no capacity longer 
to enjoy the pleasures and comforts that they have. 

Let us wake up to the idea, then, that no man ever en- 
joyed anything in his life except the passing instant, and 
that, if we are ever to find any comfort, happiness, pleasure, 
in this world, the time for us to begin, so far as circum- 
stances will allow, is to-day. 

One other thought I wish to suggest, — this from a con- 
trary point of view and by way of comfort. The only bur- 
den that anybody is ever called upon to bear, the only 
trouble he is ever called upon to face, is really the trouble of 
to-day, the trouble of the passing hour, the burden of the 
moment. I suppose it to be true that the larger part of our 
miseries and sorrows and difficulties of every kind are all in 



Living by the Day 133 

the air, always have been, and always will be. Most of 
people's sufferings are sufferings that they have never met, 
only those that they anticipate, that they expect to meet. 
But a friend may say to me : So far as I can conclude from 
the present condition of affairs, such or such an evil is 
almost certain to come to-morrow or next week or next year. 
How can I get rid of it ? How can I help anticipating it ? 

In the first place, I appeal to your own experience as to 
whether it be not true that in nearly every case the things 
that have happened that have really troubled you have not 
been the things you did not expect to happen ? How many 
times have you looked ahead, anticipating a definite evil, 
and had that particular evil come in the form in which you 
expected it ? Is it not almost always true that it is the 
unexpected that happens in these things as well as others ? 
And is it not true that your elaborate preparations for meet- 
ing a difficulty, for bearing a sorrow, were not needed for 
that difficulty or sorrow, because conditions had changed, 
and it was some other burden you had to bear, some other 
difficulty you had to face, not the one you had so long antici- 
pated ? 

At any rate, this is true. Suppose there is a difficulty 
coming to-morrow: the man who carries only to-day's burden, 
and so avoids being crushed and wearied, he is the one who 
is strong enough to carry to-morrow's burden. The man 
who does not confuse and worry his brain by solving any 
other problems than those that face him to-day is the man 
who is in the best condition for solving the problem that 
will face him to-morrow. So, in any case, it is to-day's 
burden, to-day's difficulty, that we are called on to bear. 

Do not carry as a burden the failure of yesterday or last 
year. People say, If I had it to do over again, I would do 
it differently. No : you would not. If you had it to do 



134 Helps for Daily Living 

over again now, in the light of present experience, of course 
you might; but, placed in precisely the same circumstances 
as yesterday or last week, with the same light on your path- 
way, the chances are that you would take the same step that 
you did take. Why worry over it? You cannot reach or 
touch it. Learn this lesson, — to go on. We have eternity 
to work in and the Infinite to help us. There is no mistake 
that cannot be rectified, there is no evil that may not be 
outlived. There is no difficulty that cannot be solved or 
put under our feet. 

As a closing suggestion, then, let me hint a word as to 
being content with the present condition of things. I have 
preached to you many times the gospel of discontent, and I 
shall preach it to you a great many times more. No man, 
no woman, ought to be satisfied with present attainments 
either as to work or character. But along with this divine 
discontent, that makes us long to be and do more, is the 
duty of being content with to-day as to-day. For what are 
we ? Finite minds growing in an infinite universe. We shall 
never be done, never be through ; but, if we do the best we 
can each hour, we are doing all that could be expected at 
that hour, and ought to take satisfaction in it. 

Suppose I am climbing a mountain, and I am half-way up. 
Let me sit down and get my breath. The valley is beneath 
me ; the beautiful landscape, the water, the grassy fields and 
woods, are at my feet. What if the peak is up yonder, and 
I know that I must be up and on to attain it ? It is sweet 
and pleasant here. Let me enjoy this for a moment. Let 
me be content with where I am, as being simply so far on 
the journey. I shall be stronger in a moment to reach the 
height that lies before me. This is the lesson. Paul, you 
will remember, says, " I have learned in whatsoever state I 
am therewith to be content." He was not born contented, 



Living by the Day 135 

it had not come to him by accident. " I have learned," — 
learned the lesson and meaning of life, learned that to-day 
is a part of an eternal process, learned that to-day is what 
might be expected as a stage in that journey towards the 
better. Learn, then, to be contented with this stage as a 
stage, with this step as a step, with this stair as a stair. 
Learn in the strength of this content to take the next step, 
and so on and on. 

I cannot better close my sermon than by reading to you 
again what I have already read to you this morning, the 
hymn that we have sung together. It has always been a 
favorite of mine, and it carries the lesson of the whole theme. 

" One by one the sands are flowing, 
One by one the moments fall : 
Some are coming, some are going ; 
Do not strive to grasp them all. 

" One by one thy duties wait thee ; 
Let thy whole strength go to each : 
Let no future dreams elate thee ; 
Learn thou first what these can teach. 

" One by one, bright gifts from heaven, 
Joys are lent thee here below : 
Take them readily when given ; 
Ready, too, to let them go. 

" One by one thy griefs shall meet thee ; 
Do not fear an armed band : 
One will fade as others greet thee, — 
Shadows passing through the land. 

" Every hour that fleets so slowly 
Has its task to do or bear : 
Lumii ous the crown and holy, 
If thou set each gem with care." 



HOW TO DIE. 



Does it seem strange to any, perhaps incongruous, that 
on this June Sunday, in the midst of a growing world, where 
everything is thrilling with life, I should take for a topic a 
subject like " How to Die " ? And yet the beauty of June, 
and the joy that our hearts feel in it, are not interfered with 
because we know they are to be followed by November ; for 
we know that after the November there is to be another 
June. But, though there were to be no other June, yet, if 
we could so consider the subject of November as to take 
away something of the gloom and the shadow that are apt 
to haunt us in connection with the thought that all that is 
beautiful and all that we love must fade, even then a con- 
sideration of it might possibly add to the brightness of the 
day, might possibly help us even to enjoy more keenly the 
glory of spring. So, if I can take away, by any considera- 
tions that I may offer, something of the foreboding, some- 
thing of the shadow, something of the dread of dying, may 
I not put it within your power to find even a sweeter, keener, 
more restful relish in those things of life that are so desir- 
able, and that we clasp to our arms with such a tender sense 
of possession ? 

It is a purpose like this that I have in mind. We have 
inherited — I cannot go at any length into the causes of it — 
a series of fancies, of forebodings, of dark traditions, that 
surround the thought of the transition through which we 



How to Die 137 

must all pass from this life to what we hope is to be another, 
that fill our minds with gloom. Death is figured to us under 
every possible aspect of horror. He is the shapeless, head- 
less image, son of Sin and Satan, who stands by the portal 
of hell, as Lucifer starts out on his journey in search of the 
new created earth. He stands there, gloating with the awful 
anticipation that his famine, his hunger for human life, by 
the ministry of sin and evil, is going at last to be filled. 
We have pictured death under the figure of skull and cross- 
bones ; we have made him a skeleton with scythe and hour- 
glass, and brandishing a dreadful dart; we have clothed 
him with all sorts of horrors, — until, at the very mention of 
his name, we think only of decay, of pain, of separation, of 
everything from which the loving heart as well as the living 
flesh shrinks. 

Let us see if we can find some other way of looking at 
death, and try to discover what is the reasonable method 
of considering this inevitable fact in every human career. 

Believing, as I do, that death is not the end of life, but 
only an incident in it, it seems to me pre-eminently fitting 
that I should close this series of sermons on " Helps for 
Daily Living " by a consideration of the question " How to 
Die." 

At the outset, then, let us dwell for a little while on the 
alternative. If it were not death, since we are here, then 
what would it have to be ? We shrink sometimes from a 
disagreeable fact without stopping to consider whether the 
alternative of that fact might not be something quite as dis- 
agreeable, if not more so. Suppose, for instance, that I 
could have conferred upon me at this moment the gift of 
physical immortality here on this planet, or the privilege of 
living here as long as the planet should endure : unless there 
were conferred upon me the gift of immortal youth at the 



138 Helps for Daily Living 

same time, it would be something unspeakably horrible to 
grow old, decrepit, to find my faculties fading, one after 
another, and still not have the power to die, not be able to 
rid myself of the growing burden of weakness and of pain. 

But suppose, along with the gift of immortality, I should 
also have conferred upon me, and upon me alone, the gift 
of eternal youth. Then what? Why, then, it seems to me, 
the alternative would be hardly less endurable. I, indeed, 
might be young, with capacity and possibility of enjoyment, 
of a keen relish for the beauty of sky and the delights of 
earth ; and yet I should pass through an experience, only 
intensified beyond expression, such as many who had not 
my prolonged existence on earth had passed through. One 
after another those I love would go, and I should find my- 
self by and by with only half a dozen persons that I knew 
in my childhood or youth. Then there would be five, four, 
three, two, and then one ; and at last I must see that one 
go and I be left alone, compelled to make new acquaintances, 
or else to wander like the Wandering Jew, one of the most 
grewsome and horrible imaginations of all ages, alone and 
homeless in the world, — to become an antiquated curiosity, 
the representative of a long-past age. Why, since the very 
meaning, the very heart and soul of life, is the companion- 
ship of people for whom we care, it seems to me that 
under these conditions any one of us would pray for death 
as he never prayed for life, — pray to go with a friend. 
Think me not irreverent when I say I would take my 
chances rather to go anywhere with a friend than to stay 
here under such conditions. Hell itself might be con- 
ceived of as endurable with a friend, yet not even heaven 
without one. 

Take another supposition. Suppose all of us who are 
alive on earth could have immediately conferred upon us 



How to Die 139 

the gift of continued existence here on our planet. What 
then ? Why, we would set all the bells ringing, we would 
be jubilant and glad for a while. But let the years go on, 
and by and by the world would become full, with no more 
room for any more people. Then no more marriages, no 
more homes, no more little children, none of the laughter 
and joy and wonder of childish lives growing up around our 
feet. A world full of grown people ! But what next ? After 
a while, we would exhaust the planet : we would see every- 
thing that was to be seen, we would do everything that any- 
body could do, we would learn everything that anybody 
could learn, we would go through all experiences that any- 
body could understand or appreciate. And then what ? 
Think of yourself snow-blocked at some way-station, and 
finding a small cottage or tavern where you could rest and 
keep warm and wait ! Then think of yourself as compelled 
to stay there for an indefinite time ! You would read all 
the books, you would do everything you could think of to 
pass away the time ; but then a day would come when a 
prison even in exchange would be glad relief, so weary 
would you be of it all. So, I take it, that, even if we could 
have immortality here on these terms, we should become so 
weary of it at last that it would be unendurable. The only 
thing that could make such a dream as this bearable would 
be that in some way we might be endowed with faculties and 
powers to visit other planets, to visit other earths, to move 
through the deeps of space. But that, we know, would be 
physically impossible, clothed with such bodies as we now 
possess. It is conceivable, scientifically perfectly conceiva- 
ble, that we might be endowed with faculties and powers 
adapting us to the doing of just this ; but a necessary con- 
dition of that would be just this " horrible " thing that we call 
death. We must get rid of this body first, must be clothed 
upon with some other kind of body. 



140 Helps for Daily Living 

I cannot, then, think of any alternative to dying, as I con- 
sider it carefully and look over the world, that seems to me 
in the least attractive. So I am brought face to face with 
this question : If we believe in God, are we not forced to the 
conclusion that, however we understand it or do not under- 
stand it, death must somehow be a good and blessed thing, 
and not an evil ? If there be wisdom in this universe con- 
trolling and guiding it, then that wisdom knows best. If 
there be power, then that power cannot be hindered. If 
there be love, then that love desires the best. Such a being 
as that would not, could not, appoint to any of his children 
anything that in its nature was necessarily evil; and death 
has been appointed to every one of his children. It seems 
to me, then, that, if we cherish, if we dare fold to our hearts 
this trust, we must take along with it that which is its in- 
evitable corollary, — the trust that death, also, is a good 
thing and not an evil thing. 

I ask you to bear with me now while I consider a few of 
the things that have intensified the natural fear of dissolution. 

One of the first things is an inherited tradition as to the 
origin and cause of death. One of the foolish and utterly 
baseless fancies of the Hebrews was that death came into 
the world as the result of sin ; that, if Adam had not trans- 
gressed at the outset, then there would have been no such 
thing as dying. But we know that this is purely a fancy, and 
that death, whatever else we may think about it, is a natural 
and necessary incident of our career, created as a part of 
the original plan by the very One who preordained the fact 
of birth. 

Death, then, is not a finality, not an end. We are not 
to think of it as a sign of the wrath of God, as his laying 
his hand upon us in the way of punishment. It is nothing 
of the sort. We have been haunted by this idea which we 



How to Die 141 

have inherited from the old theology. Some of us who 
think we are rid of the last shred of that old theology still 
have somewhere hidden away in brain or nerve the haunt- 
ing images and shadows of this old idea. So, when we think 
of death, we think of ourselves as perhaps criminals, under 
penalty, led into the presence of the judge to receive our 
sentence ; and this suggests the prison, the scaffold, the 
black cap, and the execution. But these ideas belong to a 
conception of the universe, of the government of the universe, 
and our relation to God, which is utterly baseless. 

Then it seems to me that we allow ourselves to be troubled 
in a way for which there is no foundation by the anticipation 
of pain as accompanying death. We talk about the struggle, 
the death struggle, the death agony, the last keen pain and 
anguish ; and yet I verily believe that there is not a person 
here this morning who has not suffered, over and over again, 
a dozen, perhaps a hundred, times more than any one of 
you is ever likely to suffer in the process of death. Study 
and experience and watching by death-beds has convinced 
me of one fact, — I believe it to be a fact, I believe that 
almost every educated physician, as the result of wide ex- 
perience, would agree with me, — that the act of death is 
generally painless. There is pain, there is suffering, in the 
disease that leads up to it ; but there is suffering in those 
diseases from which we recover. There is a natural process 
of anaesthesia in the approach to the moment of death, so I 
believe that almost always it is simply falling asleep. Though 
we stand by the side of a friend who is dying, and watch the 
involuntary muscular movement, the contraction of the brow, 
the quivering of the lip, — signs that seem to us to indicate 
pain, — if we could really know, there is hardly a question 
that, in almost all cases, these movements are merely 
nervous, muscular, automatic, unconscious. They do not 



142 Helps for Daily Living 

mean that there is any such suffering as we are apt to 
think. So I believe that in most cases we have suffered 
more a dozen times over, even in the dreams that have come 
to us in our sleep, than we shall ever suffer in dying. 

Then is it not true that most of us are haunted by a sort 
of grewsome and uncanny fancy connected with the grave ? 
I think I should be rendering humanity a service if I could 
only get these fancies, these imaginations, completely out of 
people's minds. My childhood was spent close by a ceme- 
tery, so that it was one of the most familiar objects of those 
days ; but I know that I was always haunted with a certain 
imaginary horror in the thought of burial. Is it not true 
that sometimes we stand by an open grave and have a sense 
of suffocation, or smothering, at the thought that we some 
time must be placed under the sod ? And yet how shrewd in 
its humor as well as in its sense was that word of Socrates, 
who, when his friends asked him how they should bury him, 
answered, Bury me in any way you please, if you can only 
catch me ! I do not expect to be buried. We have worn 
three, or four, or five, or six complete human bodies that are 
not ours now. Why not suffer from the thought as to what 
has become of them ? They are buried somewhere, or 
passed into grass and flowers and trees. I do not expect to 
suffer any more from this one being buried than I suffer 
already from any one of them. Let us put away from 
us, then, all these artificial horrors and imaginations. I 
think this matter of burial is made a matter of peculiar 
fear by our still barbaric burial customs. I have no time to 
go into this subject now ; but, if I had, I should have a good 
deal to say, a good many earnest protests to utter. I think 
in the matter of burial and the associations surrounding it 
we are not yet half civilized. 

Again, we are haunted still, as Hamlet was, by the fear of 



How to Die 143 

that "something after death." What ? If we believed, as we 
have been taught for centuries, that this life is only a proba- 
tion, and that when we have crossed the dead line our condi- 
tions for good or ill are fixed forever, then, indeed, we might 
tremble. I wonder that those who hold these ideas do not 
tremble more than they do. I remember persons who have 
come within the range of my pastoral experience in past 
years, who have been generally the noblest, sweetest, most 
refined, most sensitive persons, who carried a year-long 
horror in the thought that possibly the hope they cherished 
of the safety of their own souls was a mistake, so that they 
looked upon the thought of death with terror, lest they 
should wake up to find that the lurid cloud of God's wrath 
still overhung their souls. But we do not believe that any 
longer. We believe that the same God, the same law, the 
same right, the same wrong, the same possibility of going 
downward or going upward, that we find here, will be found 
over there. 

I do not believe that there is anything, then, about death 
that in the least changes our characters, our natures, our 
possibilities, our tendencies, or sets us in any different rela- 
tion to God, any more than there was about going to sleep 
last night and waking up this morning. Five minutes after 
death we are what we were five minutes before death ; and 
it is the same God, the same universe, the same laws, the 
same conditions, the same possibilities there as here. Let 
us, then, put aside that haunting fear. If you are not afraid 
of to-morrow, then you ought not to be afraid of the to- 
morrow of death. The inexorable judgment, the conditions 
that attach to our characters and actions, which have fol- 
lowed us from birth until to-day, will follow us from to-day 
into to-morrow. One and the same law governs the matter 
of our passing into the next world, as we call it, and this. 



144 Helps for Daily Living 

But many liberals who have put that fear away are still 
haunted by another fear. I know many tender, loving souls 
who shrink from going out into that other life. Why? 
Because it seems to them like leaving a cosey home. Here 
is a bright fire, and we sit round it with our friends. We 
can touch hands, we can speak to each other. There are 
associations and companionships here ; and people shrink 
from leaving them, as they would shrink from being put out 
of such a home as I have pictured into the dark ways of the 
night, in a strange land, not knowing which way to go nor 
what the next step would be. So I think there are persons 
who dread going out into that great world alone. Who is 
over there ? Whom shall we meet ? What kind of a place 
will it be ? It seems so desolate, so vast ; and they turn 
from the thought, and rush clinging back to the friends here, 
as a frightened child rushes to grasp the skirts of its mother. 

We must learn to trust. We lived before we became con- 
scious of it. When we came into this world, we found our- 
selves in the hands of loving, tender care. I do not believe 
that a God who provides such a reception for us as we had 
here will leave us without as good a reception when we go 
away. All of us have friends over there. I hope they know 
all about it, and are getting ready for us. I believe, at any 
rate, that the infinite tenderness and care will guard us and 
help us. It seems to me that we need right here to get rid 
of our inherited notions as to the great gulf between life here 
and life over yonder. People have apparently thought that 
life, if there is to be one there, is utterly distinct and separate 
from this, unlike it. Why do you think so ? Because we 
have our heads full of the pictures of traditional angels with 
wings. Is there any sense in thinking of people's wearing 
wings over there ? It is utterly incongruous, a part of the 
mythology of the past, absurd on the very face of it. We 



How to Die 145 

think of them as dressed in long robes, until they suggest to 
us nothing but the ghosts that frightened our childish imagi- 
nations. Is there any reason for thinking of them in this 
way ? Not in the least. We talk about cherubim and ser- 
aphim with faces so bright that we cannot look upon them 
without being dazzled. Is there anything but poetry in that 
thought ? Is a person spiritually better or morally higher by 
being turned into a being upon whom one cannot look with 
open eyes ? Let us get rid of all these conventional notions, 
and think of the people over there as real folk, just like 
ourselves, just as human, just as real, just as companionable. 
I would not wish to go if I thought otherwise. 

Let us, then, get rid of all these hauntings about Death as 
a spectre, and think of him as God's angel. What does 
angel mean? Merely a messenger, merely somebody sent 
on an errand, who need not be dressed in white nor orna- 
mented with wings. To be a messenger is to be an angel. 

I wish to close this part of my sermon by reading to you 
a suggestion of the kind of thought you should hold about 
death. It is by Mr. Edward Rowland Sill : — 

" What if some morning, when the stars were paling, 
And the dawn whitened, and the east was clear, 
Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence 
Of a benignant Spirit standing near ; 

" And I should tell him, as he stood beside me : 

' This is our Earth, most friendly Earth and fair ; 
Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow 
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air. 

" ' There is blest living here, loving and serving, 
And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear ; 
But stay not, Spirit ! Earth has one destroyer, — 
His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here ! ' 



146 Helps for Daily Living 

" And what if then, while the still morning brightened 
And freshened in the elm the summer's breath, 
Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel, 
And take my hand, and say, ' My name is Death.' " 

With this thought, then, as to what death is, I turn to 
consider for a moment a few things bearing on the method 
of getting ready to die. How shall we prepare for it ? 

I would not have you trouble your minds for one single 
instant with any of the old ideas as to getting ready for 
death. Dying is easy enough : it is living that I have found 
to be hard, — living ideally, nobly, truly. I find more trouble 
in living in one single day than I ever expect to find in 
dying. 

What shall we do, then, in getting ready for death ? The 
first thing — and a very commonplace thing it is — is to live 
rightly, healthfully ; for a very large part of that which makes 
death hard, to our thinking, is the pain that precedes and 
accompanies it. A large part of the suffering that precedes 
and accompanies death, in most instances, is the result of 
our own careless or wilful breaking of the laws of health 
before we come to die. As Bryant sings of his old man, — 

" No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, 
For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him." 

If we were perfectly healthy, I think the most of us would 
grow old and die as naturally as a leaf fades in the fall. It 
would be as quiet a process as the sunset. Most of the 
storm and trouble linked with it are the results of our own 
thoughts and words and deeds. 

The second suggestion I would make is that we make up 
our minds to die but once, and to die all at once when the 
time comes, and not be twenty or thirty or forty years about 
it. I think the most of us die in imagination over and over 



How to Die i^j 

again, and suffer a great deal more in the process than we 
shall in the actual fact when we come to face it. Suppose 
Damocles's sword is hanging over my head, and I know it. 
It is going to fall only once. I cannot prevent it, and I 
cannot reach it to take it down. I do not know when it is 
going to fall ; but let me go about my business. It does not 
concern me, since I cannot help myself. Let us leave that 
out of mind, and only see to it how we live ; and the matter 
as to how we are to die will take care of itself. 

Then, in the third place, I think that the sorrows that 
accompany death, and that we link with the thought of it, 
are sometimes keenest of all because we have done or said 
certain things, or we have not done or said certain things, 
that touched the person who is gone. The keenest pang 
about the fact of death with a great many people, if they 
would unbosom themselves and tell the secrets of their 
hearts, would be certain remembrances. I did not speak 
such words as I ought to have spoken while my friend could 
hear me. I did not tell that friend how dear he was, how 
I loved him. I did not make him know how large a part 
of my life he was, how I depended on him. If I could only 
tell him now ! If I had only told him then, it would have 
made his life so much brighter, so much cheerier. Or we 
remember bitter, spiteful words spoken, that we would give 
so much if we could take back ; and we wonder if, even there 
on the other side, he remembers it. We wonder if it remains 
a tiny, bitter drop even in his cup of bliss. 

The way, then, for us to get ready to die, as it seems to 
me, is to begin this minute — not thinking much about death, 
except as an inevitable fact somewhere in the future — to 
live just as we shall wish we had lived ; speak to-day the 
words that we shall wish we had spoken if some friend dies 
to-day and goes beyond our reach ; do the things we shall 



148 Helps for Daily Living 

wish we had done ; love so that the living shall understand 
our love. Let them know how much they are to us. Let 
them taste the sweet comfort of it as we go along. 

Death is either one of two things. Let us for a moment 
consider it under its very worst aspect. If it is the end of 
life, if none of those who have lived on this planet are living 
now, if we must join this great army of silence, then at the 
very worst it is only sleeping. It will not be pain. There 
will be no regret, there will be nothing. If not that, then it 
certainly is this other thing that I have spoken of and that 
I believe. And if it is that, then no words can overpicture 
it, no poet can oversing it, no music can oversuggest it. 
Why, sometimes I have such an intense feeling of curiosity 
about that other life ! And yet I do not want to leave here 
until my time comes. But I am glad to think that, when I 
do leave here, I shall not go away beyond the possibility of 
knowing how this dear old world that I love so much is 
getting on. There is only one century that I would rather 
be an inhabitant of than the present one, and that is the 
next. I do not care to live in any one that is past, but I 
would like to see the next one. I would like to see how 
some of these movements that are going on will come out, — 
what will be the changes in the social, the religious, the 
political life ; what the next step in discovery, in conquest 
of this wonderful earth of ours will be. And, if the end is 
not eternal silence, I expect to know. I expect to keep the 
run of these movements, even if I go to some distant planet. 
If I am engaged in work that will take me to a distance, I 
will get the news, or I will come back again now and then 
and see for myself. If that theory is true, just think of it 
for a moment ! How would you enjoy seeing gathered in 
some great hall to-day the company of all the immortals that 
have distinguished the history of our race by their physical, 



How to Die 149 

their intellectual, their moral, or their spiritual glories? 
How would you like to look upon the face of Shakspere, to 
see if Dante has got rid of that sadness that he wore, to talk 
with Goethe, to hear the music of Mozart and Mendelssohn ? 
If this theory is true, we shall meet all these : we shall find 
them, and so have in our grasp all the past of the earth and 
watch the growth of all the future. No wonder that Socrates' 
mind kindled at the thought, and he said, " If this be so, 
then let me die again and again," — if this be the condition. 
Such, then, being to my mind the best way of getting 
ready to die, I wish to close by reading to you a poem, the 
authorship of which I do not know, but which seems to state 
in beautiful words this attitude in which we ought to stand 
towards the question of death : — 

" If I were told that I must die to-morrow, 

That the next sun 
"Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow 

For any one, 
All the fight fought and all the journey through, 

What should I do ? 

" I do not think that I should shrink or falter, 
But just go on 
Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter 

Aught that is gone ; 
But rise and move and love and smile and pray 
For one more day. 

" And, lying down at night for a last sleeping, 
Say in that ear 
Which hearkens ever, ' Lord, within thy keeping, 

How should I fear ? 
And, when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still, 
Do Thou Thy will.' 

" I might not sleep, for awe ; but peaceful, tender, 
My soul would lie 



150 Helps for Daily Living 

All the night long ; and, when the morning splendor 

Flashed o'er the sky, 
I think that I could smile, could calmly say, 

1 It is His day.' 

"But if a wondrous hand from the blue yonder 

Held out a scroll 
On which my life was writ, and I with wonder 

Beheld unroll 
To a long century's end its mystic clew, 

What should I do? 

" What could I do, O blessed Guide and Master, 

Other than this, — 
Still to go on as now, not slower, faster, 

Nor fear to miss 
The road, although so very long it be, 

While led by Thee ? 

" Step by step, feeling Thou art close beside me, 

Although unseen ; 
Through thorns, through flowers, whether tempest hide Thee 

Or heavens serene ; 
Assured Thy faithfulness cannot betray, 

Nor love decay. 

" I may not know, my God : no hand revealeth 

Thy counsels wise ; 
Along the path no deepening shadow stealeth; 

No voice replies 
To all my questioning thoughts, the time to tell ; 

And it is well. 

" Let me keep on abiding and unfearing 

Thy will always, 

Through a long century's ripe fruition 

Or a short day's. 
Thou canst not come too soon ; and I can wait, 
If Thou come late." 



